All Things Avs blog: Avs lose moral victory in moral shootout

http://blogs.denverpost.com/avs/2011/03/02/postgame-avs-sharks-point-gained/6622/#disqus_thread

This blog entry contains some comments on the Avs' 2-1 shootout loss to the Sharks, one of the hottest teams in the league.

Dater opens by griping about his hotel not having wireless internet access. When AD writes about something personal in his blog, you're likely to get one of two extremes: griping, or maudlin. Here, we get gripey... and if I'm given the choice, I guess that's the lesser of two evils. While I don't think it's alarm-bell emergency that there are hotels out there without wifi -- even in Silicon Valley -- I do think it odd that the Post would put him up somewhere without it. On the other hand, the hotel does have internet access, and Dater does have a laptop... so why not simply plug his phone into his laptop with a cable and go that route? Oh, I know... because that wouldn't give him anything to complain about.

As he did in his real-news article, Dater calls Joe Thornton's game-tying goal a "lucky tip." As I explained in my comments for that article, when a beer-league guy tips one in like that, we can call it luck, but when a player of Joe Thornton's calibre does it, it's not luck. Describing it subjectively is not only an example of his bias as a reporter/fan, but it also it robs Thornton of the credit he deserves for a nice, clutch goal.

Dater then moves on to write about Elliot for a moment. As he said, Elliot looked very good in this game... thanks, in no small part, to the Avs looking good defensively (or, if you want to be more pessimistic, the Sharks looking a bit flat). As you knew he would, however, Dater manages to get a shot in at Budaj, despite the fact that he didn't appear in this game at all:

 I liked how fundamentally sound he looked. He doesn’t flop all over the place like Peter Budaj does, and was good and square to the puck. 

Adrian Dater (l), Peter Budaj

As one commenter put it, "That wasn't passive-aggressive at all, was it?" Dater's insistence that he does not have a bias against Budaj gets more and more comical with each passing day, because each day contains comments like this.

Dater's assessment of Budaj's play isn't even accurate. Budaj is anything but a "flopper." He is, ironically, exactly what Dater claims to admire in a goalie... fundamentally sound and square to the puck. Budaj's problem is that he's not a super-quick, reaction goalie... he relies on that positioning, but the team in front of him doesn't cover anybody, making it very difficult to anticipate the next shot.  Budaj also still has the occasional night where he kicks more rebounds right out to opposing shooters than you'd like to see... but again, a lot of that could be remediated if there was an Avs player covering said shooter, which there hardly ever is. In extra bonus irony, if Budaj were a "flopper," he'd probably look a bit better on this particular team... but Dater doesn't get that, because he doesn't really understand the position.

Dater then moves on to compliment Johnson's game, but not without throwing in another gripe about the trade that brought him here. He then compliments a guy he's had nothing good to say about this season, Matt Hunwick. It's good to see Dater finally come around to what savvy Avs fans have known for a while, namely, that Hunwick has been playing pretty good hockey over the last couple months (relatively speaking, of course). Yes, he had trouble adjusting to the Avs defensive "system" (such as it is) his first dozen games or so, but he's been a good player since then... but that hasn't stopped Dater (among others) from continuing to harp on him unfairly. Better late than never, AD.

Dater finishes with some random comments about Stoa, Jones, and the goaltending situation for next year, suggesting the Avs take a run at Vokoun. I think that's a terrible idea... while I believe that Vokoun is one of the NHL's elite goalies, he is a terrible fit for this Avalanche team. He is a very, very good positional goalie... but this defensive team requires a goalie to be in two or three positions at once (see above comments on Budaj). Voukoun would definitely be an upgrade, no doubt about it... but to assume that goaltending is what needs fixing on this team is to not understand this team.

Dater does indicate in his closing sentence that Voukoun will likely have many offers from better teams than the Avs, and why would he come here? That is a great question... I don't think he will, and neither does AD, apparently.

A decent blog entry tainted by some lack of objectivity on Thornton's goal and yet another example of Dater's inability to treat Budaj fairly, or even to just leave him alone when he had nothing to do with the game in question.

C+

Avs/Kings recap

http://www.denverpost.com/avalanche/ci_17493203

In this article, Adrian Dater recaps the LA Kings' 4-3 win over the reeling Avalanche, now losers of 12 of their last 13 games. As usual, his "real" coverage is a few notches better than his blog entries, but there are a couple things in this article that I will use to demonstrate how the conflict of interest between his highly-opinionated and much-less-highly-educated blog negatively affects his regular coverage.

The intro to this article, in stark contrast to a lot of Dater's work, is really not bad. Flowery language such as  "swirling, snow-driven puck" and "Quick's guarded twine" is a bit too Dickie Dunn for my taste, but he does a good job setting the stage here. As I've said before, his intros are very often awkward at best, so when he comes close to pulling one off, I feel I should give him props for it.

He accurately notes that while the score was close, the game was not, as the Avs pretty much got manhandled in the first 40 minutes, and only a bad shift from the Kings where Jones scored twice, and a misplayed puck by Quick in the final minute which led to a fluky Stastny goal, made this one appear to be a close game. Dater also includes a quote from Liles, which is good. It's always a sign of good journalism when the subjects, rather than the author, tell the story.

A problem -- or the seeds of one, anyway -- crops up when he describes the play of newly acquired goalie Brian Elliot:

New goalie Brian Elliott wasn't to blame for this one. The recently acquired netminder made many good saves among his 38. Yeah, he might want one back, scored by L.A.'s Drew Doughty with 1.1 seconds left in the second period that made it a 3-0 game. But otherwise, Elliott was the only Av who looked like he cared in the first two periods.

Is there a problem with that description? No, not at all... but Dater's well-documented bias against Peter Budaj makes this stand out a bit. Had Budaj allowed those four goals, I am confident in saying that Dater would have described at least two, if not three of them as "soft." Any shot that makes its way in through the five-hole or from the point is "soft" in Dater's book, as long as it's Budaj who lets it in. Elliot gets a far different treatment than Budaj would likely have received in the same situation.

Here is what Dater had to say about Peter Budaj in the team's only win in the last month, a 4-3 win over the Blues in which Budaj made 42 saves:

"                                                                                                                                                                "

Budaj, who was very solid all through that game and made two or three huge saves in the frantic final minute to seal the win, got nary a mention in that writeup... but Dater not only mentions Elliot's play in this loss, but he's wearing the kid gloves, even giving Elliot a pat on the back.

Now, to be clear, I'm not down on Elliot after this game -- I've said for quite a while that no goalie is going to look good playing for a team this defensively irresponsible -- I'm only using this as an example of how Dater demonstrates his bias, and how it seeps into his "real" coverage of the team.

Why is it a problem? Here's why: because those who did not watch the game are counting on Dater's article to tell them how it went down... that's the entire point of newspaper coverage, when you get right down to it. The people who read the article now have an idea about Elliot's play... but is it accurate, or is Dater boosting Elliot's play (just as he often did Anderson's) so he can continue to have a contrast to hold Budaj up to? Right there is the problem we get when we allow a journalist to exploit his bias... the reader cannot trust Dater's descriptions in this regard because he has already emphatically stated his preferences. The reader cannot trust that Elliot really wasn't too bad in this loss, any more than he can trust that Budaj was not a factor in that win... bias such as Dater's poisons the journalism, and it should not be allowed, period.

Overall, a good article on a bad game, but the article includes hints at the possibility that Dater has already started allowing his pro-Anderson/ anti-Budaj bias to seep into his coverage of Elliot.

B

All Things Avs posts: Sharks/Avs recap

http://blogs.denverpost.com/avs/2011/02/20/postgame-avs-sharks-the-grim-march-continues/6552/

After a few blog entries that simply reviewed the recent trades the team has made without offering a great deal of insight, Dater had this entry after the Avs got shut out against San Jose.

Up to this point, Dater had done a reasonably good job with his assessments of the two big trades over the weekend: he seemed to understand the reasoning behind the Anderson trade (they were not going to re-sign him anyway, might as well flip him for somebody they might be able to hold on to and develop) and kept his remarks largely in the "boy, things sure happen fast!" neighborhood. And his comments on the Stewart/Shattenkirk-Johnson trade were equally balanced: Dater worries that giving up Stewart is a mistake, but he also knows that Johnson is exactly the sort of player he's been saying the Avs need all along, and you've got to give up talent to get talent. Again, up to this point, he'd been OK, and those blog entries together receive a C+ grade.

But all it took was one game to end all that. This blog entry is a return to the mopey, pessimistic, sky-is-falling attitude that pervades Dater's work... if it had stopped there, then it would have been merely bad. However, this blog entry also offers an example of one of the prime reasons Adrian Dater should be removed from the Avalanche beat: his clearly-stated bias towards certain players and against others.

Dater starts with a variation of his "I'm not one to (blank), but...," this time saying, "I'm not going to start second-guessing the Stewart-Johnson deal tonight, after one game." I have my doubts, but let's take him at his word on that, and move on...

Next, he digs into the Anderson trade. Remember, he was pretty shruggy about this one up to this point, but that was before Anderson stood on his head for Ottawa that night and sent him all into a tizzy.

But I still want to second-guess the Craig Anderson deal some. I still can’t believe Anderson is gone. He was so great last year, and now he’s gone, traded for a guy who has been terrible all year in Ottawa. Can’t believe that’s all that came of Anderson, after a first year in which he literally carried the team into the playoffs, playing 71 games.

So, you can't believe it. OK. Rub your eyes, take a deep breath, and get back to work. Guess what? Anderson was terrible all year in Denver, too... so what's your point? One good game in Ottawa and he's a Vezina candidate?

Oh, and do you have any idea what the word "literally" means, Dater? This is one thing I can't stand for, is when a person who is PAID TO USE THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE treats it like this. "Literally" is a word, it has a meaning. Learn it.

So many fans seem to think he “quit” on the team this year. Does anybody have any evidence of that? I sure can’t find any. 

Well, there were all those times he half-assed a save attempt, where he played like he didn't really care. He didn't look like the same goalie he did in the first half of last season, and even his biggest fans would admit it. Ironically, the Ottawa game Dater is talking about that convinces him that Anderson should have been the Avs Goalie Of The Future is all the proof some of us need to show that Anderson's play this season was the result of giving up on the team... in his first game in Ottawa (a team with pretty bad defense, themselves) he performed like he hadn't for Colorado all year. Looks like pretty convincing evidence to me that he might have been holding something back with the Avs. Good riddance to him.

Sorry, but I’m an Anderson guy. I think this: I think Anderson DID feel less wanted this year, after the Avs didn’t give the time of day to his agent toward talks on a new contract.

Two problems with this one. First, it came to light right after this that the Avs DID, in fact, offer Anderson a very nice contract and a substantial raise, and he turned them down. Glaring mistakes like this are why real reporters routinely include something called "fact gathering" as part of their work.

The big problem here, though, is:  "I'm an Anderson guy." How often do we see a professional journalist proclaim the guys he likes and doesn't like the way Dater does? It's just ridiculous... journalism is all about being free from bias on the subject you are covering, and what bias you cannot rid yourself, you do your best to mask and keep out of your stories. Not only does Dater fail to make an attempt to keep his personal bias about the Avalanche out of his writing, he pretty much flaunts it. Frankly, I can't believe he hasn't been fired for this sort of thing. He should be.

Then he had a couple of bad games, and suddenly he was in a rotation basis with Peter Budaj. That’s where I split with the coaching decisions from there on the goaltending. I still think Anderson needed another bunch of games to play by himself before he started to be in a platoon position with a guy who has NEVER proven himself as a No. 1.

 
AD, he had more than "a couple of bad games." He was under .500, and his backup had better stats than he did. This is the problem with bias in reporting... it makes you unable to discern (and thereby report) report the truth. Bias is poison to journalism.

Now, if you're one of those who will dismiss it by saying "But it's only a blog!" consider this: yes, a blog writer is different than a journalist and is subject to different ethical boundaries (if any)... but when a blog writer IS a journalist, it creates a major problem, and this is a perfect example of it. It is a conflict of interest to get paid as a journalist to cover the Avalanche, and then spew out ill-informed and completely personal opinions on the same subject, ESPECIALLY on the same website.

And why take a dig at Budaj here? Budaj did his job as the Avalanche backup this season. Anderson failed, spectacularly, in his job as the starter... but what does Dater do? Defends Anderson, attacks Budaj. Recall just a bit ago when I said that bias poisons journalism? There's the evidence of it, right there... no hockey mind or journalist would ever suggest that the problem with a team is its backup goaltender.

After bitching about this for another few paragraphs, Dater then returns, as you knew he would, to second-guess the Johnson-Stewart deal for a while. Big surprise, right?

Dater does get one thing right in this blog entry, and this is it:

I was wrong.

He's wrong about a lot of stuff, folks, but that hasn't stopped him yet.

Grade: F

Postscript: The comments section produced an interesting exchange. 

Vamjl: 

Why are you so quick to cut Andy all the slack in the world and just as quick to throw Budaj under the bus and back over him? 

Jimbo (me):

I agree... Dater goes out of his way here to make excuses for Anderson, but when it comes time to discuss Budaj Dater dismisses him with one sentence.

Whether Budaj hs proved he can be a #1 goalie or not, he DID prove to the coaches and the Avs that he gave them a better chance to win than Anderson this season, and that says it all... if Budaj's as bad as Dater says and the Avs STILL went with him, then we've just learned everything we need to know about what Andy brought to the team... if Dater put his massive bias aside for a bit he might be able to give a better analysis on the goaltending situation, but he'd rather be the writer with an edge than the writer with the insightful commentary and analysis. 

"Adrian:" 

Jimbo,
Congrats on the most idiotic post of the 100 comments so far. Bravo!
How many games has Budaj won lately, I wonder? Oh, and Anderson won 13 games this year, and Budaj 12 so far. So there goes your statement about giving them the best chance to win.

Jimbo (me): 

How is my comment idiotic? I said that the coaches and the Avs had pretty clearly stated that Budaj gave them the best chance to win, as evidenced by his increased workload as the season went along. Prove me wrong... go ahead. Show everybody what an idiot I am, or admit what a petty, unprofessional writer YOU are. 

I thought I made a pretty good point, don't you? After being given a very heavy workload to start the season, and then again after he returned from his knee injury, Anderson eventually fell into a platoon situation with Budaj, and then near the end it seemed he might actually be headed towards a backup role. They ultimately traded Anderson away, of course, and on top of all that, Sacco actually said at one point "Right now [Budaj] gives us a chance to win"... the clear implication being that Anderson did not.

That sure seems like a lot of compelling evidence to back up my statement that the Avs' decisions (and statements) about the goaltending told us a lot about what they really thought of Anderson as the season went on. Dater apparently doesn't like reasoning that follows a linear path, however, as it clogs up his frothy-bias machine and he has to spend the rest of the night getting it running again. So instead of responding to the argument, Dater throws out some facts that don't really support his point (or damage mine), and lashes out, calling my post "idiotic." Classy.

Now, it was pointed out that it might not have been Dater himself posting as "Adrian," and I responded that if this was the case I apologized to the real Dater... but frankly, I have little doubt it was Dater who wrote that comment. All it does is show how thin both his knowledge of the game AND his skin really are.

All Things Avs blog: Dater Puts Sacco On the Hotseat

http://blogs.denverpost.com/avs/2011/02/13/postgame-avs-predators-time-to-start-questioning-sacco/6467/

In this blog entry, Dater focuses on some questions about coach Joe Sacco's handling of the Avalanche during their now-seven-game losing streak. Dater starts off, as he often does, with a personal story: this time, griping about cab drivers who don't like to accept credit cards (it's because their tip will be reported (and therefore taxable), Dater... if you're going to pay with a card, tell him up front you'll tip cash, and I reckon you won't get nearly as much resistance), and then thanking the creator of a Predators blog for giving him a ride to his hotel. Dater graciously links to that guy's blog. Hopefully, Dater actually checks out that blog, because it's a lot better than his.

Dater then uses his "I'm not one to (blank), but..." intro to lead into questioning many of the coaching moves made by Sacco recently. Dater says something in that lead-in paragraph that I completely agree with, and since I go out of my way to point out the things he says that I don't agree with, it's only fair to give him a high-five when he says something intelligent and insightful:

Coaches, to me, are guys who get too much credit when things go well for their team, and too much blame when things go bad.

This is exactly correct, and is why I'm not really too down on Sacco right now. Sacco, like his team, is learning the NHL game, and mistakes are to be expected. He was given a young and inexperienced, poorly-constructed, bargain-basement team that got hit hard by the injury bug, and none of that is Sacco's fault. However, he has been making some decisions that I think should be questioned if not necessarily criticized, and Dater touches on a few of them.

Despite the griping that follows, this entry did not come across like Dater thinks Sacco should be fired, or that he believes Sacco is the cause of the problems the team is facing right now. I personally think that's the correct angle here. Dater did a reasonably good job of keeping the focus on certain choices Sacco has made lately, such as yanking goalies mid-game, benching players to (presumably) send messages, and allowing David Koci anywhere near the ice with his skates on. Although I don't think the team has tuned Sacco out, I can definitely see how some of the things he's doing right now might get them on that path... and Dater alludes to this as well.

The issue with this blog, though, is the tone Dater uses throughout. Although the questions Dater asks are legit, he presents them in a typical-for-Dater watercooler voice that treads the line of appropriateness for a serious blog, but is far too conversational for a guy who's the Avs beat writer for the only major newspaper in town. I know that this is where a ton of people would say, "Hey, man, it's a blog, not an article. Stuff like that's OK in a blog," but then I would look down from my white horse and say, "Yeah, and for a regular fan the guidelines of journalism aren't a big deal in a blog, but it's not written by just a regular fan, he's the Avs beat writer, whether he's blogging or not."

Although not nearly as blatant as some others he's written, this entry is an example of the Conflict of Interest Dater creates with this type of coverage... it's Dater's job and responsibility to cover the Avalanche. If Dater wants to blog about cabbies and drug addiction and KISS, he can be as conversational as he wants (as long as the Post doesn't think he crosses some line or another), but when he blogs about the Avs, his blog must maintain the same level of professionalism and integrity as his reporting.

The questions he poses are appropriate and fair, but there is a way to approach them and maintain the professionalism expected from the team's beat writer, even when they're presented in a blog format. I really don't know how the Avs take this guy seriously when he asks questions, when he turns around and writes things like this.

To be honest, this topic would have made a great news article, had Dater done the reporter thing and asked these questions of Sacco himself... his readers could have learned a lot about the team and its coach with a good, hard-hitting investigative story about these issues. Instead of doing that admittedly difficult work, however, he just takes the easy way out, asks a bunch of open-ended questions that are really just criticisms with question marks at the end, and puts it out there for discussion.

In other news, Dater (of course) finds a way to get in a dig on Peter Budaj:

And then there have been some of Sacco’s other decisions (staying too long with Kyle Cumiskey, choosing him over Holos, benching Craig Anderson in favor of Peter Budaj, who simply isn’t a No. 1 goalie in this league...).

Why is that necessary? Budaj hasn't been the Avs' #1 guy in years. He's the backup, and that role has been pretty clearly defined. Has Sacco ever insinuated that Budaj was the number one goalie, or even that there was a goalie controversy on the horizon?  Not to my knowledge, making it a completely superfluous comment, but when Dater sees a spot to get a jab in at Budaj, he takes it.

So overall, Dater's inappropriate tone brings a reasonably solid effort down to C level. Too bad, because the idea was on target, but the resultant entry was lacking much.

Avs/Preds recap

http://www.denverpost.com/sports/ci_17374501

Here we have Dater's recap of the Avs/Predators game on February 12, which the Predators won 5-3. It opens with a music reference -- a Dater favorite -- and then moves on to a very odd bit where he tries way, way too hard to combine Shaquille O'Neal and Disneyland into some sort of metaphor for the Avs' playoff chances. Rather weird, actually. Eventually, Dater does get around to talking about the game itself.

That part of the article is a fairly depressing rehash of the game, in which the Avs were outshot and outhustled significantly through the first two periods, but still managed to lead 3-2 not three minutes into the third period on a goal by Matt Duchene. However, since these are the Avs and there is no defense allowed, they gave that lead right back moments later, and then lost the game with 2:30 remaining when Winnik's weak clearing attempt was stopped at the blue line and subsequently shot through Budaj's legs.

Overall, the recap of the game is OK. Dater's full into his Debbie Downer mode, but frankly the Avs are playing like crap and there isn't a lot of good stuff to report about them. Dater really misses the mark (as he usually does), however, when he mentions Budaj. These two sentences were the only mentions the Avs' backup goalie (starting his second consecutive game due to Anderson's abscence) received:

It was a soft goal, yes, one that Budaj should have stopped.

and later, as he mentioned the few Avs players who had good games:

 The Avs got a terrific game from Kevin Porter (one goal, one assist), and Matt Hunwick is starting to look like a real player again. But overall, there just wasn't enough sustained offensive pressure, too many turnovers and no clutch goaltending.

This is a prime example of one of Dater's most glaring faults as a reporter: he allows his personal feelings towards a player or a team into his writing. Journalism -- even sports journalism -- should strive to be devoid of bias, but Dater seems to have skipped that semester of journalism school. Peter Budaj was very sharp all game long, and at one point in the third period, when the Avs had been outshot by a 3-1 ratio but still led the game, one could argue that Budaj was the only reason they were in that position at all. But Dater's active dislike of Budaj not only prevents him from mentioning his solid game, but causes him to go out of his way to say something negative about Boods.

The fourth goal was definitely one that Budaj would like to have back, because it looked like he could see it pretty much the entire way and it kind of fluttered in (possibly deflected mid-way) under his pads... but Dater will describe ANY goal that wasn't highlight-quality as "soft," as long as it's Budaj he's talking about. The goal was not soft, it just beat him. It does happen... and when Budaj was the one and only reason they had a chance to win that game in the first place, he should have at least got some recognition for it. But Dater hates Budaj, and would rather be caught dead than say something positive about him.

Budaj has had four games in a row now where he has been very, very good. He is playing better as a backup than Anderson is playing as a starter right now... but the only mention he gets in this article is blame for a "soft" goal that really wasn't, and a ludicrous claim that the Avs didn't have enough "clutch goaltending" in the game, despite the fact that without clutch goaltending they probably would have lost 8-3. 

Dater closes with a brief Forsberg update. Apparently, the notion that Forsberg is the best guy on the ice lasted about one game. Forsberg looked amazing about 15% of the time, and somewhere between "mediocre" and "pretty bad" the remainder, and to Dater's credit he takes his lips off the man's butt long enough to write that Forsberg looked tired and took a couple penalties.

Grade: D+  A failed attempt at a clever introduction leads to a boilerplate recap of the game. Would have been unmemorable if not for providing yet another example of Dater's bias against Peter Budaj. The sad thing is that there are people out there who believe that Budaj is an awful goalie because Dater says so... but by continuing to go out of his way to rag on the guy, he demonstrates that he doesn't know enough about either goaltending or reporting to be considered a reliable source on the matter.