First, here’s the elbow to the head of Savard (for those few who haven’t seen it) that started it all on Sunday Night:

You’d expect me to quote the Bruins’ Captain now, after we’ve learned that Savard is out indefinitely with a Grade 2 concussion… likely for the remainder of the season.  But no… instead one of the most vocal critics of the hit calling for Cooke’s suspension is his own teammate, NHL veteran Bill Guerin:

“If a guy gets hurt like that with a shot to the head, there’s got to be something,” Guerin said. “Actions happen. Guys don’t mean to hurt each other, but they do. You got to pay a price for that.”

Guerin said players must know they can play the game with protection against hits to the head, especially those that a player can’t see coming.

“We’re all under the same umbrella, whether the guy’s on my team and I’m sitting right next to him or he’s playing in California,” Guerin said. “It doesn’t matter. We’re all playing in the same league. We all want the same safety. We all want to be looked after the same way. I understand he [Cooke] is on my team but, hey, he’s in a tough spot.”

This says a lot about this situation.  Always known as a gritty player since he joined the Canucks, since being traded to the Capitals and later picked up as a free agent by Pittsburgh, he has become known around the league as something of a cheap shot artist.  He’s picked up two suspensions for dubious hits and has been expected to receive more, but the NHL is doing nothing in this case.  Other players are chiming in to see that these kind of hits aren’t overlooked again.  According to TSN, Lecavalier and St Louis have joined in the chorus, too:

“He’s got no respect for the players,” said Tampa Bay Lightning captain Vincent Lecavalier.  “Matt Cooke, he’s been doing that for a long time.”

Like much of the league, Lecavalier wants to see a change in the way that headshots are penalized, but he realizes that the majority of the onus remains on the players themselves to do the right thing.  Something Lecavalier believes that Cooke ignored.

“He knew exactly what he was doing when he came with his shoulder,” Lecavalier stated.  “He knew exactly that he was going to hit his head and that’s how guys get hurt.”

Lecavalier was not alone in his criticism, Lightning teammate Martin St. Louis was also vocal about his displeasure at the lack of suspension for a repeat offender like Cooke.

“There are certain players in this league, that you tend to see on the highlights with hits like that,” said St. Louis.  “I don’t think it’s a coincidence that it was given by Matt Cooke.  He’s a hard working player, I don’t want to take anything away from the way he plays the game but I think that there are times when guys are vulnerable and he still follows through.  If that hit is not a suspension, I don’t know what is.”

Locker rooms and social occasions within and around the NHL community are about to become very frosty places for Matt Cooke, according to Sheldon Souray:

“Two guys punch each other’s lights out, then you go to bar and you have a couple of beers together.  When you’re Matt Cooke, you go to the bar that night and there is no camaraderie. There are no friends.

“When you fight, there is something honourable in that. But you flip that switch — you start hurting guys — there is noting honourable in that.”

Unfortunately, there’s a rematch in store for the Bruins and the Penguins next week.  It’s likely Matt Cooke will dress for the game.  And because the league has not enforced a penalty in this blatant case of endangerment, it will be up to Boston’s enforcers Shawn Thornton and Milan Lucic to exact a penalty.  Will there be a repeat of the dreaded Bertuzzi-Moore revenge incident?

Six years hence, the NHL continues to prove itself thoroughly incapable of protecting the players.

For the sake of the game, I hope that Penguins’ coach Dan Bylsma finds a reason to scratch Cookie from the lineup March 18th.

These competing cliches have become a touchstone of sorts in the case of a certain recently dethroned uber-goalie, and a number of local Canucks bloggers are hot-under-the-collar in response to journos insisting that the team’s only path forward is moving Luongo out to free up cap space.

It was with the goalie-gets-you-there hypothesis that many Canucks fans simply assumed that Roberto Luongo, with his ostensibly justified high salary, made it a foregone conclusion that the Canucks could go deep this year (and last year) into the playoffs.

But is it true?  Can you buy your way deep into the playoffs by splurging big on a marquee goalie?  I decided to test the theory. 

Here are a couple of quick tables that map out goaltender salaries, starting with Conference Finalists:

Chicago Blackhawks
	Starting Goalie: Khabibulin, Nikolai AGE:  35 $6.75 Million	Backup: Huet, Cristobal AGE:  32 $5.625 Million
Pittsburgh Penguins
	Starting Goalie: Fleury, Marc-Andre AGE:  23 $5.00 Million	Backup: Garon, Mathieu AGE:  30 $509,000
Detroit Red Wings
	Starting Goalie: Osgood, Chris AGE:  35 $1.417 Million	Backup: Conklin, Ty AGE:  32 $750,000
Carolina Hurricanes
	Starting Goalie: Ward, Cam AGE: 24 $2.667 Million	Backup: Leighton, Michael Age: 27 $600,000

… and here’s another showing the dropouts from the Conference Semifinals:

Vancouver Canucks
	Starting Goalie: Luongo, Roberto AGE: 29 $6.75 Million	Backup: Labarbera, Jason AGE:  28 $461,000
Washington Capitals
	Starting Goalie: Varlamov, Simeon AGE: 20 $155,000	Backup: Theodore, Jose AGE: 31 $4.5 Million
Boston Bruins
	Starting Goalie: Thomas, Tim AGE: 34 $1.1 Million	Backup: Fernandez, Manny AGE: 33 $4.333 Million
Anaheim Ducks
	Starting Goalie: Hiller, Jonas AGE:  26 $1.3 Million	Backup: Giguere, JS AGE:  31 $6 Million

Here’s what may have changed:  with today’s salary cap consciousness, overspending on a goalie means that it becomes more challenging to build a team in front of him.  This is a reality which, as I pointed out the other day, is hitting Gillis in the face at the moment with the Sedins asking for a fortune and more than 10% of the team’s salary budget tied up in one player, Roberto Luongo, and another big chunk presumably being allocated to The Twins.

Perhaps more interesting than the above table is this chart I whipped up (covering the regular season, 2008-2009) which shows that splurging on goalies doesn’t necessarily deliver absolutes either:

What’s the lesson from all this data?  First:  clearly, individual salary is not entirely predictive of individual performance.  Second:  When you account for outliers like Chicago, Detroit and Carolina, there is a slight inverse corresponence to goals against and goalie spending (ie. you get scored on more when you spend less on goalies) for NHL teams.  However, the margin of difference is only about 20%, and this year four of the six biggest goalie spenders were gone within the first two rounds.  Only Chicago (which is extremely top-heavy on goalie salary) and Pittsburgh (at $5.5M) remain among the big-spending playoff teams.  What makes the difference at the top end?  A hot rookie.  Or, in the case of Detroit, an underappreciated veteran with a bad agent.

Chicago found itself in a fortunate position this year with a fairly low player salary budget (so many rookies and sophomores) that it could invest in fairly known quantities in Huet and Khabiboulin.  That’s depth that may be required to take them through the next two rounds in the playoffs, and it is a strategy that is quite unique to the NHL — but shows that Chicago is the first team to truly embrace the cap and turn a limitation into a key advantage.

So for the playoffs this year, there’s a really interesting opportunity to see which strategy prevails.  What does this mean for the Canucks?  As the very sage Ben Nevile, one of my commenters pointed out the other day, Schneider could be the difference — but for now, he’s very much a wildcard.

The Canucks could indeed trade Luongo if Schneider were to make a Cam Ward-ian appearance at the beginning of next season, and this could provide the team with an immense advantage overall … but until then?  Gillis is hamstrung, unless he can throw together a deal to move Luongo and get a veteran lower-priced goalie in return as a part of the package, which is quite possible.  But few teams have the cap room, and you’d hope to move him to the East Coast so as to prevent having to deal with him on a routine basis all season long (I doubt very much he’s interested in moving to Edmonton anyway).

The major lesson of the above analysis, therefore, is that a goalie on his own might get you through a season — but not the playoffs.  That takes a broader depth chart, thanks to video preperation, off-ice scoring strategy, and the isolation of a goalie’s weaknesses that emerges from playing him 6 or 7 nights in a two-week period.  Had Luongo not been injured and had such a slow recovery when he did return, I’m sure he could have propped the Canucks up to a league-leading points total … but with modern-day goalie-busting techniques, such as he and Varlamov felt in their respective final games, teams can no longer (if they ever could) ride the goalie through the playoffs.

The Canucks in particular are at a dangerous precipice between the pipes… but from threat comes opportunity.  Do the Canucks trade their best player to address both?

Bourque retires after 22 years in NHL, Stanley Cup win

By JOHN MOSSMAN AP Sports Writer June 26, 2001

DENVER (AP) — For 22 seasons, Ray Bourque performed like few others on the ice. On Tuesday, he showed he knew how to make a grand exit, too.

Bourque announced his retirement 17 days after hoisting the Stanley Cup with tears streaming down his face.

Bourque’s pursuit of the elusive cup made him a sentimental favorite in this year’s playoffs.

“It took a long time, but the timing was perfect,” he said. “For me, this is a pretty neat finish. It means I retire as a champion.”

An emotional Bourque dabbed at his eyes and choked back tears several times at a news conference.

“Many of you have asked why I am retiring at a time when I am still playing pretty well,” Bourque said.

“By far the most important factor is my desire to be around my children,” said the father of three.

“Frankly, I also have had a strong commitment to myself never to stay too long in the game. Also, we are still on cloud nine having won the Stanley Cup and having achieved that goal kind of rounds out my career.

“It’s been a wonderful, happy, terrific 22 years.”

Bourque, 40, the highest-scoring defenseman in NHL history, was a five-time winner of the Norris Trophy as the league’s best defenseman and played in a record 19 consecutive All-Star games.

He played for 21 seasons in Boston, but requested a trade to a contender in March 2000 in hopes of winning the Stanley Cup. He finally got it when the Colorado Avalanche beat the New Jersey Devils in Game 7 on June 9.

Although Bourque’s stint in Colorado lasted just 15 months, his No. 77 jersey will be retired and will hang from the rafters of Pepsi Center, Avalanche general manager Pierre Lacroix said.

“Ray’s contributions to our hockey club were tremendous and will never be forgotten,” Lacroix said.

Bourque’s jersey is the first to be retired in the six-year history of the Avalanche and the fifth in the history of the franchise, which originated as the Quebec Nordiques.

Despite his long career in Boston, Bourque said, “I am a Colorado Avalanche, and I am retiring as one. So it is only right that I have returned to Denver to make this announcement.”

Bourque recalled reporting to the Boston Bruins’ training camp in 1979, “hoping to make the big team. I was a shy, quiet kid from St. Laurent, Quebec. I believed I could play in the NHL, but you never know until you get there.

“Over 1,800 games and 22 years later, here I am having exceeded my wildest dreams. I have been honored to play with great players on terrific teams. I have been very lucky along the way. I’ve avoided devastating injuries. I’ve won a few awards. And I’ve capped my career by being part of a Stanley Cup-winning team.”

Family matters became more important for Bourque since his trade to the Avalanche. Bourque’s wife, Christiane, and their children, aged 17, 15 and 10, stayed in Boston after he was traded.

Other than spending more time with his family, Bourque said he had no immediate plans for his future.

“This summer is going to be very busy, especially with a visit from my new friend, Stanley,” he said. “I’ve had that cup twice now with me, and next week it’s going to Montreal with me.

“I suppose once I get to the fall, I’ll be able to sit back and think about some business options and other opportunities.”

He called winning the cup “an unbelievable feeling,” but insisted he had “absolutely no regrets” about leaving the game now.

“To compete at the highest level of this game, you have to be mentally prepared every night,” he said. “Honestly, that gets tougher and tougher to do after 22 seasons.

“I could have played another two or three years, but I don’t think I would have played at the same level. I’ve always wanted to go out on my terms and playing at the level I’ve been accustomed to playing. There are some things you can’t do anymore. You make some adjustments, but you just can’t react as quick, and I knew I wasn’t going to get any quicker.”

Asked what he will miss most, Bourque said, “Just messing around with the guys, having fun playing a kid’s game. I am 40 years old and go to the rink every day and play a game for a living. It doesn’t get much better than that.”

Bourque said he decided last summer that the 2000-2001 season would be his last, regardless of his team’s accomplishments.

“The voice in my head kept saying the same thing. I knew I was leaving after this year. I was just hoping it could finish like this. This is the one thing I was chasing for so long and hoped I was going to be able to hoist.”

Asked what legacy he hoped to leave his teammates, he said, “I think the passion and just the joy of playing the game.”

With Bourque’s retirement, the Avalanche save $5.5 million, the difference between his 2001-02 salary of $6.5 million and a $1 million buyout. That should help the team pursue its marquee free agents: Joe Sakic, Rob Blake and Patrick Roy.