No Avs practice Tuesday; no updates from Landeskog, O’Reilly fronts
In this blog entry, Adrian Dater explains that under the new CBA, teams must take a minimum of four days off every month, which explains why the Avs did not practice despite their ultra-poopy PK performance of late. Good info, I had no idea about that.
Also included in this blog are a weather update from Canada (it's cold), a bit of an info-free update on Landeskog, and a closing paragraph about Ryan O'Reilly in which Dater now seems to have moved from "The Avs offers are fair" to "The Avs are subbornly refusing to give in." Dater also uses his new catch phrase — "good times" — twice in this blog entry. It isn't old yet, but it will be soon.
A-
Michael Sgarbossa recalled by Avs; Brad Malone bound for Lake Erie
In this blog entry from later in the same day, Dater lets his reader know that Brad Malone has been sent to the AHL to make room for Micheal Sgarbossa. Dater offers some good, albeit brief, facts about Sgarbossa, guesses at where Sacco will use him, and writes that a guy like him could help address the Avs' scoring woes (scoring being something which is not really Malone's forte). This is an example of the perfect recipe for the blog: 3 cups facts with a dash of speculation.
A+
Ryan O’Reilly update: Not much goin’ on
In this blog entry, Dater lets his reader know that those backwoods Russian doctors did not permanently cost Ryan O'Reilly's the use of his foot, it's just a "minor sprain." Whew! I was worried he wouldn't be able to get back and forth to the fridge for beers over the next couple weeks.
Dater goes on to restate his feelings about O'Reilly's contract holdout. AD does not think things are going well, and blames the Avalanche, writing:
The Avs have just let this kind of thing go on for way too long with players. They cut off their nose to spite their face time and again with players who want what – fair or not – is their perceived value. Then they leave and thrive elsewhere. Maybe it’s time for Avs management to take a good hard look in the mirror and say “Maybe it’s us, not them” as to why players seem to do great things away from this team, after, you know, other teams show they care about them at the bargaining table.
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| I didn't have any other photos to add to today's blog, so I figured a shout-out to sweet old trucks was in order. |
Dater does acknowledge he said that, but writes that "circumstances with the roster have changed." I guess Dater means that if the Avs have a healthy bunch of forwards, O'Reilly is worth $3.5 million per year, but when guys get hurt, he's now worth more? I'm not sure I agree with that logic. If my wife's car breaks down, my truck doesn't suddenly become more valuable. More useful, definitely... but if I'm selling it I'm not going to be able to say "Yeah, I'm asking about a grand more than it's worth, but that's because it's our only car right now." When a team starts paying players based on how much they need them rather than how much they're worth, that team gets into trouble.
While I do see Dater's point to a degree, I feel he's trying to straddle the fence here... on one side he's saying the team is being smart with their money and not overpaying for a guy who's demanding far too much compensation than his body of work would call for, and from the other side of his mouth he's saying the team is being cheap, stubborn, and stupid and chasing away their fans. Perhaps the truth, as it often is, is a mixture of black and white, but here it just sounds like Dater is waffling. If Dater wishes to make his point about the Avalanche front office's attitude towards players in certain situations, he'd be wise to pick as his example a player the Avs are truly trying to underpay, rather than one he's already stated the team has dealt with fairly.
One other note about this blog: Dater writes that under the new CBA, a restricted free agent in O'Reilly's situation can become a free agent if he sits out an entire season of hockey. He has offered no source for this claim, and from what I can tell from reading through the changes to the CBA, he is completely wrong here. If this were the case, why wouldn't EVERY player hold out after his entry-level contract was up, go play in Russia or Sweden for a year, and thereby become a UFA six years early? I think this is a case of Dater severely misunderstanding something he overheard, not bothering to check it, and then throwing his readers into a state of confusion by publishing it as fact. I could be wrong, but the only place I can find this supposed CBA change is in Dater's own writing, so I'm not betting on it. The grade here would be a C if not for this misleading factual error.
D+
EDIT: Today, Dater published this blog entry, explaining that what he wrote about O'Reilly's RFA status changing after a one-year holdout could be (and as he later adds, is definitely) wrong. He writes that it was told to him "by people I trust," but calls this a "misunderstanding" of the new CBA.
A few readers have blasted AD in the comments section, but perhaps surprisingly, Grading Dater is not going to join in that fun. Although Dater does deflect the blame somewhat by pointing a finger at his unnamed source, the fact that he has created an entire blog entry just to admit that he was wrong and that he was sorry, is pretty cool. Certainly, as a reporter, there should have been some part of his mind that said, "Wait a minute, that doesn't make any freakin' sense at all, I should spend another five minutes googling shit to see if this is accurate before I commit it to print." If he'd done even a little bit of research before he wrote and published it, he'd have avoided this entire thing... but even so, here he comes clean and admits publicly that he was in error, and that's about all you can ask for once the mistake has been made.
A
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