All Things Avs blog: postgame Avs/Ducks

http://blogs.denverpost.com/avs/2011/03/12/postgame-avs-ducks-17-out-of-18/6656/

In this blog entry, Dater expresses some frustration with the way the Avalanche season has gone. Another loss, more injuries... I suppose that even a great reporter would have a difficult time telling the same story twenty times in a row.

Dater starts with an intro comparing the Avalanche to Old Yeller. I suppose the idea behind this metaphor is that the Avs should be put down, and that they make Dater cry, so I guess it works. I'd point out, however, that Old Yeller was not "bitten by rabies," unless the wolf's name was "Rabies." Which come to think of it, would be a kind of funny name for a dog.

Dater then refers to the Avalanche fans as "ye faithful followers of these metal-footed men." Another weird phrase. Some of the Avs appear to have stone hands and shit for brains, but not metal feet. Do I know what he meant? Sure I do... but he's a professional writer, and his audience shouldn't have to decode what he wrote to get to what he meant. Dater should avoid the flourish-laced language when he's been bawling his eyes out over Old Yeller, apparently.

Dater moves on to compare the current Avs to the Nordiques, and makes an attempt to comfort Avs fans by bringing up "karma," remarking that the Nordiques fans had to endure years of bad hockey in order to build a team that would be taken away immediately before becoming a powerhouse and winning the Stanley Cup. I guess the point is that Avs fans didn't have to go through the growing pains then, so they have to now... but trying to tie "karma" into it doesn't really add up for me. Karma would see to it that Avs fans suffer through another few years of this crap, and then see their team move back to Quebec and win a couple Cups there. With Budaj in goal. So let's not bring up "karma" again, shall we?

Once Dater finally gets to talking about the game itself, he actually has some decent comments. Pointing out that Duchene has not been good, noting that O'Reilley's wide miss that turned into a chance (and goal) the other way was a biggie, and some recognition that Erik Johnson was (and has been) very good. Dater closes with a couple links and another word or two on the Chara hit.

Overall, a very odd start leads to some good, blog-worthy comments about the Ducks game. If the intro had been less awkward, this may have been a solid A.
B

Dr. Dater Examines Avs' Slump

http://www.denverpost.com/avalanche/ci_17381130

In this article, Adrian Dater takes a look at the Avalanche's fall from playoff contention two months ago to being 14th in the conference today.

The article starts by reminding us that right before Christmas, the Avalanche were tied for first in the Northwest Division and riding a six-game win streak. Dater quickly shatters that fond memory, however, by rudely bringing us back to the present:

Like roses still on the coffee table six months after Valentine's Day, everything has wilted for the Avalanche. The team that will take the Pepsi Center ice tonight against the Calgary Flames is in 14th place in the Western Conference and on a seven-game losing streak — the longest since the team moved from Quebec to Denver in 1995.

Intros often seem like they give Dater trouble. He's always trying to do something clever, but he rarely succeeds. Here, he gets off to a very promising start by connecting the joy and hope of Christmas to the optimism surrounding the Avs at the time, but then in the second paragraph, he switches rather abruptly to Valentine's Day flowers. I realize they're dead flowers, and I suppose some cranky people may associate Valentine's Day with some pretty negative emotions to begin with, but it really derailed what had the potential to be a solid introduction. Why not have simply carried the Christmas theme through to the present, and compared the Avs' season at this point to the Christmas tree still up a month and a half later... brown, dry, and brittle, should have been taken to the curb a while ago? Nice try, I guess, but it could have been so much better. 

Dater then goes through a laundry-list of causes for the Avs' rapid fall from grace: Injuries (including those to Anderson and Stewart), questionable personnel decisions (primarily the benching of certain players, which he addressed more thoroughly in a blog entry), the falloff in Stastny and Duchene's play, and poor (to be kind) defense... correctly noting that while the goaltending has been pretty bad, the goalies didn't have much of a chance behind the defense the team has been playing. 

It's all pretty good, actually. This is the sort of article I'd like to see more of when Dater's in an anylitical mood... he keeps it simple, straightforward, and free of the editorializing of which he's often guilty. One quibble is that I would like to see a bit more statistical analysis to back up some of these claims; for example, Dater states that after Stewart went down with his broken hand, "the team started to really struggle offensively without him." It sounds like a good observation, but the team actually fared pretty well without Stewart in the lineup; it wasn't until the loss of Fleischmann that the Avs' offensive struggles really started to hit hard. A look at the numbers would have revealed this, and it would have made for a much stronger article.


Really, the only complaint is that Dater falls into the "Stastny makes a lot of money" trap, which always annoys me. Who cares if he makes a lot of money? They ALL make a lot of money, but it's a team sport... the fact that Stastny makes more doesn't mean he should be singled out when the entire team fails. Stastny's contract is not hurting this team, they are barely spending any money at all on players as it is. Complaining about player salaries is an easy way out... it's the sort of thing a casual fan does, but a professional journalist should not.

And again, some statistical analysis would really help this argument that Stastny and Duchene aren't pulling their own weight. Stastny in particular is a playmaker, not a goal-scorer... after just getting done explaining that the team struggled offensively after losing their leading goal-scorer in Stewart, it could have led into a good exploration into the possibility that Stastny's struggles were due to losing one of the best targets for his passes. Looking into the numbers may have provided some insight into WHY Stastny and Duchene have been struggling, but Dater doesn't seem to want to take it that far.


Overall, though, this is the sort of article Dater should keep on writing. Clearly, he's expressing his opinions on what's going on, but he does it in a way that remains well within the bounds of responsible and ethical journalism. A bit more facts to boost his assertions would have made it a pretty good article, but then again, Dater was wise not to go too far beyond wading-pool-depth analysis, as the nuts-and-bolts of hockey isn't his strong point.


Grade: A-

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.