The hockey offseason is notoriously slow and boring, and so it's been tough for me to get the motivation to add an entry about the Denver Post's coverage of the free agency "frenzy." Most of the Avs off-season moves have been them re-signing their own players rather than making big slashes with free agents. The Avs made one fairly big signing, adding PA Parenteau to the roster, but there was really nothing earth-shattering. So without much to report, I was concerned that the Post's coverage would just jump straight into a bunch of silly rumors... it's happened before.
Happily, the coverage of the start of free agency was decent: very little wild-rumor mongering, and an overall "report it as it happens" style, which I appreciate. The only complaint I'd log is that after Mueller was not extended a qualifying offer, Dater went off on a bit of a tangent about Tomas Fleischmann, writing not one but two blogs under the impression that the Avs "regret" not signing him last offseason. During the time Dater blogged twice about Fleischmann, he blogged zero times about the Avs' re-signing of wing Jamie McGinn. The first blog about Fleischmann at least tried to draw a connection between his situation and Peter Mueller's, but never really bothered to prove the central assumption that the Avs regretted letting Fleischmann go in the first place. The second Fleischmann blog was just Dater trying to defend the first one, and it was really unnecessary. I don't see why he thinks a guy on the Panthers' roster is more important than the guys on the Avs' roster... a little of this speculation/comparison is fine, I suppose, but two blogs on the subject is one too many.
So overall, I'd give the Post's free-agency coverage a decent grade, let's call it a B.
