I should explain: I found gainful employment shortly after my last post and have had a tough time finding free time to eat and sleep, much less post on a blog. I hope I haven't lost any of our faithful supporters along the way, because, quite frankly, we can't really lose many more before you'll actually be able to hear these words echo on this lonely, lonely blog.
Sam and I, with a special guest, actually recorded a podcast last weekend on this year's best gambling bets that we'll post as soon as we figure out this crazy internet thing. For now, I'm posting an article that's been influenced heavily by the now-retired guys at Fire Joe Morgan. FJM had its own theme day at Deadspin, and I've been pouring over their archives ever since. What follows isn't quite the 80,000-word masterpiece you'd typically find over there, but I couldn't sit back and let this trash heap of an article go without a little commentary.
Brendan Morrison Flames Out with Canucks but Makes Calgary Better
Let's go back to the 2004 Stanley Cup playoffs.
Let's. Nothing seems more relevant than a playoff series seven seasons ago, before a season-ending lockout that changed the makeup and playing style of the game entirely.
The playoffs where that large, not so talkative former Canuck, Big Bert, couldn't play because on March 8 he'd hit a player who didn't want to fight and then, never considering a glove shot knocked the guy out, dove on him. Those playoffs.
Pretty sure the whole "driving his face into the ice, while eight other players jumped on top of him" might have had something to do with that concussion thing. What's your point again? Oh, right, that you may not get the reference to the 2004 playoffs because they were 6 and a half years ago.
Remember the last win that year? Game six first round. Awesome game, 5-4, chances everywhere. Alex Auld did his best interpretation of a human sieve to allow the Calgary Flames back from 4-0 down but shut the door the rest of the way and the Canucks got a goal at 2:28 of the third overtime.
Here's the point in the article where most of you might point out (after noticing quirks like "awesome," "last win," and a general lack of comprehension about proper comma use) that this isn't a professional writer, and holds about as much credibility as one you'd find at Bleacher Report. I say, it's because we let shit like this slide that sites like Bleacher Report are allowed to exist and blatantly flaunt their consistent misunderstanding of "they're," "there," and "their."
No one on the ice at the time of the goal, not Auld, Cooke, Naslund, Brent Sopel or Bryan Allen is still with the Canucks but one is now with the Calgary Flames.
Yes, because those players are golfing/terrible. Naslund's retired, Cooke is a somewhat serviceable player when he plays on a line with Crosby, Sopel was a salary-dump this offseason, Auld is carrying Carey Price's tobacco-stained jockstrap as a backup, and Bryan Allen has been cast into purgatory, also known as the Florida Panthers. If any of these players were still on the team, a guy like, say, Brendan Morrison would be able to make this team.
Yup, the guy who danced out from the corner and tucked it by Kipper in overtime: Brendan Morrison.
Nobody has ever danced after three overtimes. It was more of a graceful collapse from complete exhaustion.
A day after being told he wasn't going to be a Vancouver Canuck, Morrison signed a one year $725, 000 one way deal with Calgary. Word had it that he was offered a two way contract with Vancouver but wanted security and the injury riddled Flames came calling and he jumped.
Fair enough. It didn't work financially for both sides, the Canucks couldn't offer him and his family the security they needed, he didn't fit the role the Canucks wanted, and so he signed instead with a team that's had some injuries down the middle. Great place to end the article.
Oh, there's more.
This last fact may be hard for Canuck fans to take. Why wouldn't Gillis offer him a one-way deal? If he's not performing send him down and pick up the relatively speaking small tab. Or if anyone needed a center ship him off for a seventh rounder and you lose nothing.
Do you know why this is a terrible idea, and that it represents everything Gillis stands against? Because if you treat players like shit, they'll stop coming to your city. Players and their agents notice things like Glen Sather shipping Redden to the minors to make way for 4 years of Derek Boogaard. Whether you agree with his moves or not, Gillis has worked hard to ensure that his players feel like they've been respected. Assuring a guy that he'll get some security for him and his family, then sending him to Manitoba or shipping him to Columbus for a 7th rounder in two months is an absolute stab in the back. There's a reason that Hamhuis and Torres took less money to come here, and Ballard had the Canucks on his 7-team limited no-trade list. Part of it is playing in a hockey market, part of it is joining a team that looks poised for success, but a huge part of it is the culture of respect for players.
He's versatile with a great attitude and he had a 42 point season last year that dried up early because his ice time was given to a younger player in Washington.
The injustice! This "younger player" apparently inspires so much contempt, that the author won't waste his precious time to research who it was. Well, I did. Guys who took Morrison's spot: Steckel, Fehr, Fleischmann, Gordon, and Laich. All are better or have more upside than a 35-year old Morrison. The reason he lost his job on the second line wasn't a personal vendetta. It's because he wasn't as good as the competition. Say, that reminds me of a similar scenario that's happening right now.
Most fans don't care how tenacious Rick Rypien or Alex Bolduc or Peter Schaefer are, or Guillaume Desbiens.
Most fans don't know or care about Keith Yandle on Phoenix either, but that mean he's not an incredible talent. Most fans, God bless them, don't having a fucking clue about what they're talking about. Have I mentioned Bleacher Report yet?
They know Morrison is tenacious in his own way and they know what he brings to the rink every day. The radio talk shows and the online sites are full of unhappy Canuck fans
Team 1040 is full of unhappy Canuck fans, no matter what happens. Some fans are dying to trade that washed-up punk Hodgson, despite the fact that he's only 20 years old, could still make the team even after spending 14-months recovering from a back injury, and might be the best Canucks prospect since Kesler. Some were outraged when the Canucks signed the Sedins to an extension last year. Those people are still probably outraged that Henrik didn't win the Norris as well.
and if they're right and Morrison is valuable it not only hurts Vancouver not to have him but it hurts that Calgary does.
No! *Hits author with rolled-up newspaper.* You CAN'T make a value judgment like that without backing it up. You haven't made a single argument in this entire article about why Morrison is a better pick than Bolduc, Rypien, or Desbiens. Your entire premise is based on the fact that the fans like Morrison. I love Morrison. He's a BC boy with a heart of gold, and I wanted to see him on this team. But he wasn't the right fit. We'd all love Gino Odjick and Pavel Bure back in the lineup too, but it's not happening. Morrison's not a gritty, hard-forechecking guy that would fit on the kind of fourth line that Gillis and AV want. You know how they came to those conclusions? By doing extensive research into why the Canucks didn't make it past the Blackhawks and beyond in last years playoffs. Not by listening to the bleeding hearts of those who reminisce about the good ol' days of West Coast Express-led teams being derailed by Cloutier. Just because they post poll questions on Canucks.com, doesn't mean that they listen to them.
The Canucks didn't win that 2004 series, a Calgary overtime goal in game seven did them in. Who scored it? A former Canuck veteran who maybe they gave up on too soon, Martin Gelinas. Sound familiar?
What sounds familiar? The name Gelinas? Because you mentioned he was a Canuck veteran nine words earlier? Or is this you reporting from the future, where future-Morrison has whisked the underdog future-Flames to a sweep of the future-Canucks from his role on the fourth line (where he'll be since Langkow, Jokinen, Conroy, Stajan and Backlund already play center). I'm sure he's the one they'll have playing the key minutes in overtime. Tell my future-self to shoot himself in his future-head if this situation plays out.
Also, the Canucks gave up on Gelinas in 1998, the year after he had 10 points in 24 games. He went on to score over 50 points twice more in his career. Too bad we didn't hang on to him for an extra mediocre six years so that we could prevent him scoring an overtime powerplay goal in a first-round series.
G.M. Mike Gillis may become a very unpopular man in Vancouver this Spring.
Or not. Considering that he's assembled, on paper, one of the best teams the Canucks have ever had. And in just two years, he's turned Nonis' crap heap of draft classes into a top-5 prospect pool. Morrison didn't fit, and that's that. Yes, he scored a big goal in 2004, but that was a long, long time ago. Morrison is a different (read: worse) player, and the Canucks are a different (read: better) team now. It would have made a nice story, just like Fleury making the Flames last year would have made a nice story. A wise executive once said that (paraphrasing) "the moment you start listening to the fans, you take one step closer to sitting with them." And that would be terrible for Gillis, since he'd have to put up with guys like this a lot more often.
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