Avs Mailbag

Hello! Today we take a look at an Avs Mailbag from last week.

Too early to press panic button?

In this installment of the Mailbag, Adrian Dater tackles five questions from readers. The first question asks whether, in light of the poor power play, PK, and road performances by the Avs so far, an early first-round draft pick is all that Avs fans have to look forward to this season. Dater answers by saying that the presumed #1 pick is Seth Jones (son of one-time Denver Nugget Popeye Jones... cool little trivia tidbit there) it's probably too early to start thinking about draft picks, but that "in a short season, the panic button will get pushed a lot earlier than usual."

I suppose this is a good enough answer, but it's worth nothing that at the time AD wrote this, the Avs were 2-4. Three games earlier, they had been 2-1, and two games later they would be 4-4. I would have liked to have seen an answer that a bit more emphatically points out the mercurial nature of the start of any season, particularly one that started as unusually as this NHL season has, before even humoring the "panic button" sort of reader.
B

All Things Avs positively positive after win at Calgary

Hi! Today, let's take a look at the All Things Avs blog posted to the Denver Post online after the Avalanche's 6-3 victory in Calgary.

Paul Stastny's two goals helped Colorado beat Calgary

Don't spend them all in one place, Avs!

In this blog entry, Adrian Dater shares his thoughts after the Avalanche's victory against the Flames. Dater starts out with a  predictably sarcastic "time for a parade!" paragraph, but then settles into a breakdown of certain players who Dater feels are worthy of praise. The problem is, though, that Dater is so unfamiliar with praise (he admits as much), that it doesn't always come across as what he claims it to be.

Let's start with his words for Chuck Kobasew:

Chuck Kobasew – I’ve taken a couple of shots at him before, probably cheap shots. I regret it. I consider myself tough – but fair – as a reporter. I don’t want to ever take cheap shots at guys, at least not the kind that have no humor in them and and are just dumb.

Dater does go on to write that Kobasew played "a terrific game" with particular praise for his work on Colorado's third goal... but does that first paragraph sound to anybody else kinda like he just called Kobasew both humorless and stupid?

A couple-three blog grades

Howdy! Time to catch up on two or three All Things Avs blog entries, all written by Adrian Dater. Ready, set, grade!

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.

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.

It's now clear that the hint from the earlier blog about Dater's change of heart with O'Reilly's situation was correct; this is pretty much a complete about-face from the attitude Dater had just a couple weeks ago, when he called the Avalanche's offers to O'Reilly "more than fair."

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

Avs lose, O'Reilly celebrates?

Hello! Today Grading Dater will take a look at a recent game review from Adrian Dater of the Denver Post.

Colorado Avalanche loses 4-1 to Edmonton after giving up four power-play goals

This article is a bit of a hybrid: one-half basic and decent recap of the game, and one-half commentary on the Ryan O'Reilly situation. The recap part of the article is fine: quotes from players and Sacco, critical of the Avs as a team where they were soft (special teams), mention of how Landeskog's absence isn't helping, and an acknowledgement that the Oilers are a very tough team right now. The only real beef with the recap side of this article is that Dater calls out Stastny in particular, only later mentioning that his linemates have also been ineffective. Yeah, Stastny being the highest-paid player makes him a target for such criticism, but Stastny has always been a guy who looks great when his line is clicking but never really carries anybody on his back. Calling out "the Stastny line" is probably more constructive and accurate than singling out Stastny simply because he's paid a lot of money, but it's a minor quibble.

The other half of the article is Dater's way of making this game relevant to the Ryan O'Reilly saga, and to a point I do get it: the PK was awful (two straight games with three or more PP goals allowed), and O'Reilly is a very good penalty killer. The pieces do fit. AD writes that the more the Avs lose, the better "O'Reilly's leverage" against the Avs becomes... whether that logic tracks or not I'm not sure, but Dater makes a decent enough case for it. The part that really doesn't work, though, is this:

Wherever he was Monday night, Ryan O'Reilly might have sat back with a smug grin and thought to himself, "That's why I'm worth the money."

Unlike most of his readers, Dater has actually met and talked with Ryan O'Reilly. He knows a bit about the man's personality and how he treats others. And while I understand that this is just a winking attempt at a clever intro, the impression created here about Ryan O'Reilly is that he's, well... kind of a dick.

Maybe Ryan O'Reilly is a dick, and is just cackling with glee as he watches the Avs get trounced, making this just great, factual reporting from Dater. However, my gut feeling is that even if O'Reilly is a huge dick, he doesn't appreciate the Denver Post -- even jokingly -- making it sound like he wants his Avs teammates to continue getting BF'ed just so he can get his money. All in all, a decent write-up of the game, but with an O'Reilly tie-in that misses the mark.

C-

No Suspension for Brad Stuart

Hello! Today we will be taking a look at a recent All Things Avs blog by Adrian Dater. This blog deals with the lack of disciplinary action taken by the league over the hit by San Jose's Brad Stuart that knocked Avs captain Gabe Landeskog briefly out of that game, and caused him to miss the following game in Edmonton. Not only will we take a look at the blog entry, but we will have a little discussion about NHL rules and the Laws of Physics, to boot!

No Suspension for Brad Stuart

There is very little to this blog. Short and sweet, it's basically a quick update on the situation in which Dater informs his reader that the league has elected to take no action against Stuart for the hit, which also received no in-game penalty. My take (which will be evident by the time you finish reading the blog) is that while an in-game minor wouldn't have been out of order (Stuart's elbow made contact, but it wasn't extended, it was in the follow-through... so in my view that aspect is borderline), this was a fairly clean hit. The reason Landeskog got hurt was not a dirty play by Stuart, but because Landy skated head-first into a monster open-ice hit, the sort we Avs fans would love to see somebody in maroon -- say, Erik Johnson, for example -- dishing out to people.

Brad Stuart explains to reporters about how his strict diet
of infants and kittens has helped prolong his NHL career.

Things like this are when the All Things Avs blog is at its best: delivering little bits of information that are either too small or too trivial to create an entire column for them. So in theory, this is a good blog entry. Dater writes that he's not surprised there was no suspension because "Landeskog emerged OK." Fair enough, I guess... although I think it's more because it was a legal hit AND Landeskog emerged OK (or so we thought). It goes off the tracks, however, when Dater chooses to add in this sentence.

The head was the initial point of contact and Stuart left his feet delivering the hit – which Todd McLellan and the laughably homer-ish Sharks TV announcers said didn’t happen (might want to get your eyes examined boys, cuz he clearly left his feet)

To discuss the problems with this sentence and this blog, we can first look at the video of the hit. Landeskog approaches the collision with his body held much lower than Stuart's, there isn't enough height difference to cause this so it's either invisible stilts for Stewart, or Landy is crouching, having reached out a bit for the puck. It appears (although this is difficult to discern with 100% certainty) that Landeskog's head and shoulder are actually the initial point of contact with Stuart's shoulder, immediately followed by pretty much every part of Landeskog's body north of his shins (as opposed to the last time Landeskog got clobbered at the blueline, in which Andy Sutton hit almost nothing but his head).

Avs Mailbag: Landeskog a superstar in the making?

Hello! Today we're going to take a look at the latest Avs Mailbag by Adrian Dater. In it, Dater tackles seven questions from readers, ranging from the future for Calder-winning forward Gabe Landeskog to the relative ugliness of the Avalanche jerseys.

Avs Mailbag: Is young captain Gabriel Landeskog a superstar in making?

First of all, let's discuss the headline: Landeskog either is, or is not, a superstar in the making. It's entirely possible that someone other than Dater wrote the headline, but whoever did write it should be made aware that "the" is a part of speech called an article, and they're free, so let's go head and use them. In the old days of printed newspapers, articles were often dropped in order to fit a headline into its allotted space, but since the Avs Mailbag only appears online, this is not a valid excuse. It may seem like nothing to quibble about, but seeing as how this entire blog is about quibbling, I might as well do it right.

Hockey is Back!!!

At long last, hockey has returned, and so has Grading Dater! With the lockout wiping out half the season, there hasn't really been much reason to update the blog.  Why? Two reasons:

1. I found it difficult to get motivated to get online and write a blog about hockey (and hockey reporting) when there is no hockey. Just seemed kind of pointless, and with the Broncos being very interesting/heartbreaking this year, the NHL became very easy to ignore.

2. I realize that the DP's writers probably feel exactly like I do about writing when there's nothing to write about, but unlike me they're actually required to write even if they have nothing to write about. So in sympathy with their situation, I was more than willing to cut them the same slack I cut myself.

What articles and blogs the Post's writers (even Terry Frei popped his head back into the NHL to contribute an article or two) did offer were few and far between, and consisted of two general types of article: the Dry & Boring Update Article ("After two weeks of no contact, the NHL and the union are set to meet again today. ZZZZZ") and the Gripefest Blog. Even though I have often stated my distaste for using the All Things Avs blog for such blatant opinioratory (I'm pretty sure I just made that word up), I wasn't too bothered by these because, as I said before, the poor bastards have got to write something.