Thursday, March 6, 2008

Thursday Morning Cupcheck - Reader Appreciation Day

By Todd Maternowski

Top of the morning, los fanos de hockey! Last week we fired up the ol' ZuboZen Koanator 3000, and saw, with crystal-clear Zen clarity that the Brad Richards trade was indeed a good one for the Stars. I was planning on dedicating this week's column to my Annual Dallas Stars Porn Name-a-thon --although it won't be as fun without Juicy Pokeitin and Jeff Help Her Earn-- but the buzz and excitement from the trade has caused my email inbox to swell like a month-old yak carcass in the Bangladesh summer. Literally thousands of emails came across my desk in the past week, and although I would love to respond to them all, I must apologize to my loyal readers for slacking off and watching copious amounts of reality television instead (frankly, I think Fleshburger got robbed on Top Psycho: when The Socket Perv hasn't won a single challenge, and the judges pick him to go on to the Unattended Nursery Round, you know they're just doing it for ratings. Dumb!). Fortunately for some, I was able to cobble these together during some of the commercial breaks while watching reruns of my all-time favorite reality show, Moose!.

Dear Winner Batch # 24.

This is to bring to your notice that the Integrated Data Services Limited (IDSL) in conjunction with Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) on the e-Lottery for this year 2008 has awarded your email address attached with code number 'NP625080 is validated for payment of the sum of $550,000USD through ATM master card with drawable at any designated bank in your country.

Wait, who was voted off?

This e-Lottery was conducted randomly via internet to facilitate the payment of $550,000USD to 50 recipient for their educational,business and social assistance through out the globe.You are required to send in your code #,batch # and personal details to the below for proceedings:

The Fourhorsemenenterprises Desk

Mr. Bill Edwin

Wow, that's AWESOME!! I'm not the only one who feels like they won the Nigerian Petroleum e-Lottery this week: the Dallas Stars have done me one better with this Richards trade. Sure, there were other prizes out there: Marian Hossa and Brian Campbell come to mind, as well as a bunch of guys who, it turns out, never got traded like Mats Sundin. And while there's little question Hossa is likely the top prize, he is also sans contract after this season, as is Campbell. Pittsburgh and San Jose might have done the Stars a favor by engaging in their own Ladislav Nagy Debacles of a Trade, trading away youth, spark and high draft picks for two guys that might very well bolt ten seconds after the Pens/Sharks lose in the first round of the playoffs. With Richards, however, the Stars got a talented two-way player in the prime of his career, and three more years remaining on his contract. No rental players for us, thank you very much: Hulkson is building for the long haul.

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Sincerely, John Cummuta

Hey, that's TERRIFIC!! The Stars are no doubt two steps ahead of me on this one, too, as the have taken on Richards' huge albatross of a contract -- $7.8 million for the next three years-- but as my apparently good friend Mr. Cummuta says, you gotta spend lots of money to make lots of money! Of course, it's always preferable to build a team's payroll from the ground up, bringing up guys through the minor league system, developing them and giving them bupkus until they're ready to dominate the league. Conversely, you could trade for another team's top talent, give them a bigger role in the offense than they were getting and watch them dominate the league. The Stars have been surprisingly good at both in recent years, but lacked that Big Name Free Agent signing that many fans complained would put them over the top. While Richards was not technically a free agent, he definitely takes up all of this summer's Free Agent Frenzy Fund, which, considering the idiotic deals GMs were handing out last summer, is probably a good thing.

This day special!

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Have a nice day!

doted unanimously, abusive behave yourself

Pictured: my laptop on Reader Appreciation Day!

Well, that's just PEACHY!! To answer what I assume was your question, yes, the Richards trade was the best thing to happen to the Stars, regardless of what happens this season. What too many Stars fans forget, is that this year was supposed to be a rebuilding year. The aging core of players who were there when we won the Cup in '99 are on their last hockey legs, and the Stars would be foolish not to get their replacements in as soon as possible. Doug Armstrong seemed to realize this, and certainly Hulkson realized it: as a result, the Stars have gone all-in on the Youth Movement, starting players in roles that no "contending" team in their right mind would possibly try out. Placing Niskanen, Grossman and Fistric in key penalty-killing roles, giving Eriksson and Miettinen expanded offensive roles on the top line, and making other team's young-but-talented castoffs like Ribeiro and Hagman into the centerpieces of your offense is a brave, brave stance. By all reasonable measures, the Stars should be on the outside looking in, battling with Phoenix and Colorado for the final playoff spot. But all those injuries to key players seem to have had little effect on the team overall, and a division title is not out of the question for a team that many national hockey publications picked would miss the playoffs entirely. And having Richards as the obvious heir apparent to Mike Modano --three more years of the 1-2 punch of Ribeiro-Richards at center-- is going to be a grand thing to behold, regardless of what may transpire in this year's playoffs.

We're glad to inform you,

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Sincerely.

stop squirmers, surmise chain

Golly, that's just, uh, THE BEE'S KNEES? Your question is a pithy one indeed: why can't the Stars score anymore? In the first game with Richards, the Stars scored at will over the Blackhawks, putting up 5 quick goals in the first half of the game, then taking it easy the rest of the way, bothering to score only after the plucky Chi-townians put up a meaningless goal. Even in the third period, when Chicago was playing and the Stars were already thinking of the post-game celebrations, the Stars were able to answer nearly every one of the Blackhawks' meaningless goals with one of their own. Richards' five assists became the stuff of legend, and his jerseys flew off the shelves. In the last two games, however, the Stars' offense looked impotent and flaccid, Richards was held off the scoresheet and the team's impressive flow was reduced to the occasional squirt.

My theory? Just before the Nashville game, the Stars suddenly fired longtime trainer Dave Suprenaut. No reasons were given, and the whole matter was hush-hushed, so one can only assume that the reasons for the firing were personal, rather than anything job-related. When that happens in a non-hockey work environment, the result is usually a few days or weeks of employees walking on eggshells, management having closed-doors meetings and being evasive, lending itself to a general drop in productivity. Guess what, hockey fans: hockey is no different from the cube-farm in which you work. The players, coaches and executives all know what happened -you don't just get rid of a guy who's been with your organization for 20 years-- and the players are walking on eggshells, Hulkson is having closed-door meetings (probably), and Tippett and co. are, like the low-level managers, forced to be evasive and not divulge everything they know about the situation.

Unfortunately, this incident had to mar the Richards Era as soon as it began, but rest assured that once the Stars get over this hump they should be able to get back to the business of scoring goals in hockey games... hopefully in time for the playoffs. The scary thing: this constipated offensive display looks eerily similar to the one we witnessed in last year's first-round exit. Could the complete inability of Dallas' top lines to score a single goal have been the result of some off-ice incident? We'll likely have to wait twenty years for Brendan Morrow's memoirs to come out to learn the full story.

There were thousands more emails, but I'm afraid I can't get to them all: I tivo'ed last night's season finale of Project Ringwraith, and am dying to see which of the Nine is going to be banished back to the Qlippothic Shell-World of the Damned! Tune in next week when I write my monthly Cook with the Stars column, profiling different players and their favorite recipes: (next week: Nick Hagman's 'Finnish Biscuits' and a certain young defenseman's 'Ham Fistric'!)

Related stories

• Thursday Morning Cupcheck - The Legendary Steve Ott (March 13, 2008)
• Week-in-view: Let it Snow! Edition (March 7, 2008)

See more stories in:

• Hockey > NHL > Stars

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