Forum answers IV

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Questions: 1. what's your take on jim balsillie and his plight to buy and move the coyotes? do you think the judges final decision (expected later today) will have a significant impact on the four major NA sports leagues?
2. i thought the detroit/pitt. game 7 was one of the better ones of recent memory in all sports. it was clear from the onset that the officials weren't going to call the game like they had during the previous 6. what's your take on penalties/officiating style in game 7's? also, do you prefer a 2-2-1-1-1 or 2-3-2 finals format?
3. if you had to start a team, by position, who would be the first 6 players you would pick? who would you want to coach them?
4. aside from the kings, which team(s) do you see making the biggest impact (by addition or subtraction) on their roster during this off-season?
5. are the kings minor league affiliates...ontario,ca., manchester,nh. and reading,pa. ...in good financial shape? would the kings/AEG want to move the 2 non-california teams closer to the area?

Answers: 1) Sure. Any time you have a ruling such as this one, other leagues are going to take a look at it. It's probably less relevant in other leagues, in which teams seem to be in less danger of going bankrupt, but it's a precedent, and that's definitely relevant.
2) Yeah, it's just human nature. Because of my other job responsibilities, I watched quite a few of the Lakers' playoff games. You can see, in basketball as well, how the officials change their styles based on game circumstances. It's unfortunate, in my opinion, but it's just a fact of sports. I prefer the 2-2-1-1-1 because I think it stays more true to the nature of the ``home ice advantage.''
3) Am I picking a team just to win next year's Cup, or for the next five years? Because that obviously would impact my choices. I'm assuming you mean over the long term, in which case I would take Ovechkin, Crosby, Iginla, Green, Chara and Steve Mason, coached by Ken Hitchcock.
4) I have to believe that Brian Burke isn't going to be sitting on his hands. It's not his nature, and there's a lot of work to do in Toronto.
5) Ontario just completed its first season, and did well attendance-wise, but we'll see what happens next season when the ``new team'' excitement wears off. It seems to me that Manchester's attendance took a hit (although I haven't checked the exact numbers) and I know nothing about Reading, but I haven't heard about any financial problems for either. Ideally, the Kings would probably prefer to have the AHL team in the West (Reading doesn't matter, because they have Ontario now) but there's no way to do it at the moment. There are no AHL teams west of Texas, so unless there's an effort to put a few AHL teams in the west, it's not really going to work.

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Question: Not to bring down the room, but how much longer do see hard copy newsprint actually surviving?

Answer: I appreciate that you're concerned enough to ask the question, and I'll try not to give a long-winded answer. Printed news will always be there. There won't ever be a day when newspapers completely disappear. There is a real danger, however, that they will just shrink and shrink until they become a niche product. Newspapers publishers need to make a quick, important decision. Are they going to try to remake the print product into something viable, or are they going to dedicate their resources toward making money online? Right now they're trying to do both, and for the most part it's failing miserably.

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Question: Will you be attending the LA Kings Hockeyfest in August?

Answer: I haven't seen any type of schedule of events, but I'm sure I will go down and check out at least one day of it.

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Question: 1. What are your thoughts on the allegations that members of the Caps were doping? Incredibly, with the playoffs reaching its pinnacle, the issue seems to have gone under the radar. 2. From your point of view, is it as much of a problem in hockey as in other sports? Just because we don't hear much about it in hockey I'm reluctant to be as nieve to assume that the pressures of performing don't encourage some players to do whatever it takes for them to succeed. Even if it means being unethical.

Answer: I don't have the slightest idea whether there's any validity to the Washington allegations, but I agree that the NHL has done a very effective job of making people believe that there's not a performance-enhancing-drug problem among its players. I have no evidence to suggest there is a widespread problem, but it would be completely naive to think that not a single player, on 30 NHL teams, has taken PEDs.

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Questions: 1) Who do you think is closer to being NHL ready, Hickey or Voinov. I saw Voinov play for Manchester and he was much better than any other defenseman out there. I only got to see Hickey in the WJC and he didn't look as strong.
2) I understand that Alexander Giroux of the Hershey Bears is set to become a free agent. Any chance the Kings might be willing to take a look at him? He only lead the AHL in scoring in both the regular season and the playoffs.

Answers: 1) That's almost an impossible question to answer, because they've been playing on completely different levels. Hickey has been playing against teenagers in junior hockey and Voinov has spent one season of pro hockey in the AHL. You can't really weight one against the other in that way. Hickey is a year older, but Voinov has a year of pro experience. That's practically a wash, so I'd put them on equal footing in terms of being ``NHL ready.'' 2) I'm sure the Kings would be willing to take a look at him, but I'm also sure that a few other teams will be looking at him as well. A 60-goal scorer is no secret.

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Question: This is a question for Lombardi if you get a chance to talk with him, but feel free to offer your own opinions please: How married is he to the traditional 4th line with an enforcer and 2 energy guys? With Stoll and Handzus it seems you have the potential for a 3a and 3b setup which makes a lot more sense to me. Basically, why waste 3m47s of ice time per game? This ties in with the annual question of do we need an enforcer? Really? Detroit, anyone?

Answer: It seems to be, based on different conversations, that Lombardi and Terry Murray are on the same page on this topic, and that they agree that there's a need for an ``enforcer'' on the ice. I specifically remember Murray mentioning, during a period when Raitis Ivanans was out with an injury, that teams played the Kings differently when Ivanans wasn't in the lineup. So whether you agree with that or not, I wouldn't expect it to change any time soon.

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Question: Funniest thing about the weekend rumors was the denial of them. Given the fact of keeping things close to your vest, how did DL know (in your opinion) that the rumors were coming? Something must have happened to trigger his very simple, very strong denial.

Answer: Well, I called Lombardi, so that's what triggered his subsequent text-message denial, although I probably wasn't even the first to call him, since I didn't see the ``report'' until it was about an hour old.

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Question: I was wondering, as a sports journalist, what do you make of the Sidney Crosby-Kris Draper dispute? It seems that with Pittsburgh winning the Cup, this championship has been all about the anointing of Crosby as the next king of hockey. While some attention has been paid to Kris Draper's comments that Crosby acted somewhat unsportsmanlike by not getting around to leading the ceremonial post-series handshake in a timely fashion, do you think this detracts from Crosby's image at all?

Answer: First of all, I'm not going to be able to speak with authority on this, because I was out on Friday and still haven't been able to watch the end of the game. So I don't know, first-hand, if it's being blown out of proportion or not. In general, I don't care, and it shouldn't detract from Crosby's image. I've seen several championship postgame celebrations, in hockey, basketball and baseball, and they're chaotic. You've got teammates and coaches going crazy, and media and TV cameras everywhere. The guy is 21 years old and out-of-his-mind happy, and I seriously doubt he intentionally snubbed anyone. I'm inclined to cut him some slack.