I Watched This Game: Canucks at Thrashers, March 25, 2011

Canucks 3 -1 Thrashers

Seemingly lacking in motivation, the Canucks were not what you would call "good" against the Thrashers. They were, however, good enough, which is all that was necessary. With the victory, the Canucks set a franchise record for points in a season, with 7 games still left to play. Unfortunately, Daniel Sedin had his point streak halted at 9 games and 16 points, but secondary and tertiary scoring stepped up to fill the void. And, despite the two-goal lead being the worst lead in hockey, the Canucks sat back, rolled their lines, and dared the Thrashers to come back. The Thrashers did not. I watched them fail. I watched this game:

• It should be awfully clear by now that the Sedins are terrible at penalty shots. With his first period failure, Daniel Sedin is now 0 for 4 in that situation in his career. You just know that Daniel wished he could decline the penalty shot in favor of the two-minute powerplay: Please can I have some teammates and opponents on the ice? Please? Actually, that's not a bad idea: in football you can refuse a penalty and take the result of the play instead. You should be able to refuse a penalty shot and take the powerplay instead, especially when you have the number one powerplay and your opponent has the worst penalty kill in the league.

• My theory on why the Sedins are ineffective in the shootout: one of their main weapons is their renowned patience. They constantly pass up what appear to be prime scoring chances in order to create better ones. A shootout is anathema to them: you get one chance, you can only skate in one direction, and there's no one to pass to. A Sedin with a penalty shot is a little like a mule with a spinning wheel.

• After five games without a point, Mason Raymond scored the opening goal with an assist from Raffi Torres and Chris Mason's five-hole. Torres makes a great play to intercept a pass in the defensive zone, attracts the attention of an overeager Johnny Oduya, slips a perfect pass to the streaking Raymond, then drives hard to the net, creating a perfect distraction for Chris Mason. Mark Stuart did a poor job taking away the pass, meaning Mason (of the Chris variety) had to stay open to the possibility of the pass. People will call this a weak goal and, to a certain extent, it is, but blame has to be put on the defense as well for playing the situation so poorly.

• Raymond's goal seemed to give him a shot of confidence with sugar on the rim. He seemed to be everywhere on the ice and seemed to be developing some chemistry with Chris Higgins, who was originally thought to be a potential replacement for Raymond. Instead, Samuelsson may find himself bumped down to the third line if Raymond and Higgins heat up. Higgins brings a very different set of skills to the second line, as he tends to work harder and play with more grit, where Samuelsson has more patience and vision. Vigneault may have a tough time valuing his options: should he go with the Black-Scholes model or the Heston model?

• Keith Ballard has figured out the secret to getting more icetime than Aaron Rome: play on the same pairing as him and skate more slowly to the bench. Ballard had a great game, making several key defensive plays early, hitting Daniel Sedin and Victor Oreskovich with perfect outlet passes, and finishing, with Rome, a game-high +2. He played 16:41, a full 37 seconds more than Rome. Clearly a big step.

• Victor Oreskovich showed tonight why Gillis wanted him included in the Ballard trade. He played a physical game, logging 2 hits and winning battles along the boards, but he also showed some deft hands, getting off 2 shots and making a number of nice passes. His setup of the Bolduc goal, however, was merely an okay pass, enabled by the perfect outlet by Ballard. Also an okay pass: Want to see my final four?

• So that covers the second and first assist: now to the goal itself. Alex "Howard Moon" Bolduc scored the eventual gamewinning goal with a gorgeous backhand. I haven't seen anyone with a backhand that devastating since Eve Cleary. Bolduc looked his absolute Moon-iest in his postgame interview with Dan Murphy, as seen above, not to be confused with my co-writer at PITB, who is at his Mooney-est at all times.

• Christian Ehrhoff had a bit of a rough game: his giveaway on the Thrashers' lone goal was thoroughly unfortunate. It did, of course, give Roberto Luongo another chance to put the Snack Goal Principle to work. While Mason Raymond came just short of a defensive play for the ages, Luongo instead decided to try falling over, an unorthodox goaltending technique to say the least. I don't think it will replace the butterfly anytime soon.

• Evander Kane was remarkable, so here's a remark: like an overzealous mob boss, he was putting a hit on everyone. He was only credited with 4 hits, while Dustin Byfuglien was credited with 6, but Kane's hits were certainly more noticeable. Kane was easily the best Thrasher, making an impact every time he stepped on the ice.

• Alex Burrows picked up his 22nd goal of the season with a shorthanded empty netter. Hurray!

• The subject of the first intermission feature was Dan "Community Man" Hamhuis, who looked kind and approachable in his nice suit with a golden tie. The last time he drew that much attention to himself was as a volunteer rodeo clown for the American Junior Rodeo when he played for Nashville.

• As pointed out by Harrison: this is the 12th time this season that a Canuck goalie has lost a shutout in the third period and the 8th time within the game's last ten minutes. It's the only reason Luongo isn't in the top 5 of every major goaltending category: he leads the league in wins and is third in GAA and SV%, but only has 3 shutouts. He made some simply unfair saves, as seen in the video above, some of them more absurd than a baby monkey riding backwards on a pig.

• Finally, because I know everyone will want to talk about it: the refs weren't great tonight. The Canucks did not get a single powerplay, despite there being many potential candidates, some provided by the Byfuglienian one himself, Dustin Byfuglien. That said, there's no conspiracy: the referees were not instructed to avoid giving the Canucks powerplays so that a team in a non-traditional hockey market wouldn't be embarrassed by the best team in the league. It would be career suicide for anyone in the NHL front office to try something like that as it would surely be leaked by someone. I can't imagine Gary Bettman or any of his cronies taking that kind of risk. Sometimes refs just do a bad job. It happens, especially in a meaningless game like this one.

The Atlanta Thrashers and Black Players: A Follow-Up

This photo is here because its colours incidentally match our header--not because Johnny Oduya is in it.

A month ago, I wrote an article discussing the Atlanta Thrashers' acquisition of black players over the past year and a half. I argued that, not only had they built a roster with the largest percentage of black players in the NHL, but they had done so intentionally, with marketing in mind. Needless to say, it was a contentious thesis, and I got some heat.

I expected heat. Race is a topic that makes people oversensitive, accusatory, defensive, unreasonable, and blind, among other adjectives. Many people don't engage it near enough to talk about it reasonably. For example: people don't understand that perfect equality is a little harder to accomplish when one group is trying to claw its way up from years of oppression and the other is reluctantly ceding ground when it wants to. People don't realize that active, blatant racism--segregation, racial epithets, full-on hatred--is still very much alive in some parts of North America, because they don't live there. Some people don't even understand how the racial lines are drawn. Commenters told me the Thrashers' black players aren't even black--they're half-black. "Unfortunately, they have white moms," one said. Please. Good luck telling that to the doorman at a segregated nightclub. I'm only half-black. Why can't I go halfway in?

Furthermore, far too many conversations about race end with one person being labeled a racist. People are so afraid of this dangerous accusation that they avoid the subject altogether. Previous attempts to point out the Thrashers' strategy fizzled in silly accusations of racism simply for noticing, because that's unfortunately how racism works now. Color blindness is the recommended policy, and while it's not a good one (ignorance is never the cure), those who don't adhere to it are often run out of town for seemingly adhering to its presumed opposite: super duper racism to the max. It's a false dichotomy. Is it really so difficult to notice, and then not hate?

Apparently, yes. As such, race is a thorny issue. The Thrashers' story is fascinating and engaging, but it's difficult to discuss without using conversation-ending buzzwords like "exploit," as Thrashers GM Rick Dudley did in denying everything. I felt that mainstream writers and hockey people would have a hard time even broaching the subject unless they were responding to somebody that had already made the necessary explicit claims. Then you're just reacting, not noticing. If it sounds stupid, that's because it is. But consider the title of Jeff Klein's article: Thrashers Don't See Race, Just Opportunity. How did they see opportunity if they didn't see race? The line the race conversation forces people to toe is not only ridiculous, it's outside the realm of common sense.

Sidenote: Klein called us "the blogosphere," but don't feel bad we didn't get named. Feel bad for the other bloggers who thought they were part of the blogosphere. Sorry, guys, it's only us now.

This is the way the Thrashers have to play it. I never claimed that they were getting black players without considering their talent or their fit in the lineup. That would be "ludicrous," another word Dudley used. But, if a player happens to be black, and they just happened to acquire him, and this just happens to happen more frequently than at any other time in the history of the NHL in one of the blackest cities in America and the soulless marketing department just happens to notice, well, that's just happenstance. No racism here. Just a happy coincidence. Right? The nature and prevalence of the colour blindness argument forces the Thrashers to feign ignorance at the same time they're so conveniently savvy to start advertising on urban radio stations and magazines. Are you going to tell me the Thrashers just found out about their Atlantan African-American media? No, they knew about it beforehand, and they also knew they didn't have the personnel to utilize that stream of marketing. Incidentally, they acquired 20% of the black players in the NHL.

I don't mind Dudley's refutation. More than anything, it's unfortunate that what he said was what he had to say. I got heat and I'm nobody. Imagine the heat he'd get. The Thrashers would be finished if somebody inside their camp were to admit that, as seems apparent to me, this plan was hatched shortly after they realized they were going to draft Evander Kane. Their social awareness would be misconstrued as racial "exploitation" at a time when colour blindness is policy, and suddenly, they'd be alienated by the very community they're trying so hard to reach. Rick Dudley did the right thing in denying everything.

But forgive me if I think he just winked.


Other notes: you should really be following us on Twitter; and thanks to Puck Daddy for actually naming us in his piece on the subject.

Why Are the Atlanta Thrashers Actively Acquiring Black Players?

"I think we're going to try to stick with more Western Canadian kids [...]" -- Canucks GM Mike Gillis

In July of 2009, the Atlanta Thrashers signed prospect Anthony Stewart, formerly of the Florida Panthers. In the 2009 entry draft, they selected center Evander Kane fourth overall. In a trade deadline swap, they acquired Johnny Oduya, among other pieces, from the New Jersey Devils in exchange for Ilya Kovalchuk. This past summer, they picked Sweden's Sebastien Owuya in the sixth round of the 2010 entry draft, acquired Dustin Byfuglien and Akim Aliu in a 9-player trade with Chicago, and signed Nigel Dawes to a two-way deal just prior to the beginning of training camp. Why are these moves significant? All of these players are black.

That's seven black players (six if you discount Owuya, who has not yet signed an NHL deal) that the Thrashers have acquired in just over a year, in a league that only has about 30 active black players. To put it another way: in the last fourteen months, the Atlanta Thrashers have acquired 20% of the black players in the NHL. On purpose. Considering the sensitivity around racial discourse in North America, one might be hard-pressed to find any member of the Thrashers' organization foolish enough to admit that they are intentionally acquiring black players, but this is a conspicuous trend. Considering that active acquisition of visible minorities is an unprecedented organizational mandate in the hockey world (both for political reasons and the availability of such players), a discussion of Atlanta's seemingly race-conscious roster-building is warranted. There are two major questions that need to be answered. First: why are they doing it? Second: is it an acceptable practice? In this article I will explain the uniquely African-American market in Atlanta, and why the Thrashers' strategy is a good one.