Hockey Talk with Adrian Dater

Adrian Dater: Ryan Boulding of Mile High Sports and Bleacher Report, and two random but fun guests: Paul and his father, Bill, from Newfoundland.

Adrian Dater of the Denver Post talks Avalanche hockey on his latest podcast.

Here is a brand new podcast of "Hockey Talk." My special guest for the show is Jeff Marek, the extremely knowledgeable and engaging man from Rogers Sportsnet in Canada and co-host of the hugely popular "Marek vs. Wyshynski" podcast. I'm a big fan of Jeff's work, and hope you enjoy my roughly 55-minute talk with him. The prime topic of discussion was the Ryan O'Reilly news of the day. We break it all down - what it means for the Avs now and going forward, whether O'Reilly was worth that kind of offer, etc. - and also talk about the last time the Avs were faced with a big offer sheet for one of their top players - Joe Sakic in 1997. I think you'll find some of that part of the conversation, some of the facts surrounding it, interesting. We talked about lots of other stuff, including the considerable part of Jeff's youth spent going to the Hockey Hall of Fame, what it takes to get into the sports media business and, oh yeah, one of the big-time celebrities he stood next to in a men's bathroom once - and my encounter with a celebrity at a rental car counter in Vancouver once. A couple things: this is the first podcast I've done with my fancy new recording equipment over a phone line. And one of the things I forgot when doing an interview that you're taping over the phone: don't breath into the receiver so much. So if you'll pardon some occasional heavy breathing in this, I think you'll like the rest of it. I also spent some aggravating minutes trying to fine-tune the editing process of the thing before giving up. It's a homemade podcast all right. But what do you want for nothin? Click on the link below, and this will also be available on iTunes shortly and I'll post the link when it does.

Welcome to the resumption of my podcast, "Hockey Talk" (thanks, I thought of it myself). It's been quite a while since we've talked Avalanche, NHL, anything at all related to the game of hockey on this thing, but here for your listening pleasure is a one-hour show taped tonight from a Dave and Buster's at I-25 and Colorado Boulevard. With me on the podcast are two guests. One, Avalanche blogger Jibblescribbits, is a returning guest whom many of you are familiar with. Another, Ryan Boulding, makes his "Hockey Talk" debut. Jibbles still writes his popular blog on the Avs and hockey in general, with an accent on some of the quirkier statistics and aspects of the game. Boulding has his own blog - Hockeyontherocks.com, and also writes some for Mile High Sports. In this hour, we talk several subjects, such as: - How do they view the NHL after this lockout? Did the league lose them as fans with the ridiculous lockout? - How do the Avs look this year? What are the reasons for optimism, and pessimism? - The status of the unsigned Ryan O'Reilly. - Some debate about Paul Stastny, and what kind of year this could/should be for him. - The issue of new media/blogging in the hockey world today. And, much, much more! So if you're of the persuasion, click on the link below and spend some time listening to actual, honest-to-goodness, no-kidding-it's-here-again HOCKEY TALK and not LOCKOUT TALK. Praise the Lord, amen.

Unreal. It's the word of the day for me. As I write, it appears as if the NHL CBA talks are blowing up again. Owners are "furious" at Donald Fehr, one top industry source told me. The biggest reason? They think he's stalling again by wanting to bring in mediators again to the talks. That, and a list of other grievances, including essentially "injecting" himself and what owners consider his giant ego into the middle of things just when the sides looked like they were getting along and closing in on a deal. I'm not there in New York City covering this thing, so I don't pretend to have all the details. It's always better to be there, to see the body language of people and just be able to talk to them face to face. So, that's all the latest from me that I can contribute. I'll spare everyone a diatribe of righteous indignation about it all. Honestly, I'm so tired of this thing it's...unreal. Tempers heated up on the radio today too, but in my mind a most entertaining way. I was listening to "Hockey Central" on AM 590 The Fan from Toronto today and hosts Doug MacLean (former Columbus GM and Florida coach), former NHL player and host Nick Kypreos and the "drive" host, Darren Millard, got into it over the lockout. Boy, did they ever. Mostly, it was a match between MacLean (on the owners' side right now) and Kypreos (on the players' side). But it got downright nasty at one point between the two. MacLean made a point that third- and fourth-liners are doing just fine, salary-wise, in the NHL and that a deal as it might have been done with the current terms would keep them still doing fine. He also said "nobody gives a crap" about the bottom 400 players in the NHL, that people only care about the top 300. Kypreos disagreed, and that's when things got heated. Kypreos unloaded with this fusillade: "Maybe that's why you never won in Columbus, because you crapped all over third- and fourth-liners." MacLean blew his stack, firing back, "Maybe that's why you only had an eight-year career. Maybe that's why you got kicked out. Don't start throwing darts when you don't know what you're talkin' about." And it went on from there. I'm hearing this second-hand, but someone said the Hockey Central show is a daily podcast and that the whole blowup was edited OUT of the current episode. Well, turns out I taped the whole thing, so click on the link below for some entertaining radio. I'm sure some of their disagreements are part of the shtick of the whole thing - after all, I'm putting it on here now - but I definitely do think the "passion" here was real. Enjoy:

[media-credit name="ESPN" align="alignright" width="65"][/media-credit] My guest on "Hockey Talk" this week is Katie Baker of ESPN's Grantland.com. She's a fine new writer on the scene, and in our 55 minutes of talk, she discusses her unique career path from working at Goldman Sachs for six years as a financial analyst to writing about mostly hockey for ESPN's newest long-form sports journalism and pop culture destination - all by age 28. Also discussed are the latest goings-on with the NHL and much more. The talk occurred Saturday night in Los Angeles after the Avs-Kings game. Hope you enjoy. Remember, I'm not quite Larry King or Roy Firestone yet as an interviewer, but working on it. Podcast Powered By Podbean

[media-credit name="Jim Matheson" align="aligncenter" width="150"][/media-credit] [media-credit name="Mark Spector" align="alignright" width="73"][/media-credit] [media-credit name="Derek Van Diest" align="alignleft" width="150"][/media-credit] I hope you click on this week's podcast of "Hockey Talk with Adrian Dater." This week's guests are Jim Matheson, hockey writer at the Edmonton Journal since 1972, Mark Spector, who covers hockey for Canada's Sportsnet, and Derek Van Diest, Oilers beat writer for the Edmonton Sun. We had a fun, hour-long discussion on many topics, including the great Gretzky days in Edmonton that "Matty" covered, his tumultuous departure from Edmonton, our thoughts on today's new sports media world, thoughts on who the best team in the NHL is at the moment and a whole lot more. We also get some background noise at times of a great St. Louis Cardinals comeback. This podcast was taped at the Milwaukee Street Tavern, down on 2nd and Milwaukee in Cherry Creek. I think people interested in how you get a job in sports journalism today will find this podcast interesting, among other things. Hope you like it. It will be available for free download shortly on iTunes but you can click on the little green player below to listen now. Podcast Powered By Podbean

ST. LOUIS — Oh boy, Paul Stastny may have some 'splainin' to do on behalf of his old man. Late tonight, I got word of some explosive comments Peter Stastny made about the Avalanche's blockbuster trade with the St. Louis Blues - two organizations Peter played for in his Hall of Fame career as a player, the most time spent, of course, with the Avs' former identity as the Quebec Nordiques. What did Peter Stastny think of the Avs' trade of Chris Stewart and Kevin Shattenkirk, along with a second-round pick, to the Blues for Erik Johnson, Jay McClement and a first-rounder? Well, not too much really. Here is the audio of the elder Stastny's bombshell comments to St. Louis radio station KMOX tonight. And here is the transcript of what he said, in case you don't want to listen to the one-minute clip -- but I encourage you to do so. "This young team was ready to challenge, almost, for a Stanley Cup this season. They were so good. All they needed was some more chemistry, and some synergies. Instead, they destroyed the team. I mean, that was a one-way deal. Mr. Armstrong will look like a genius. I don't know what they were thinking in the Colorado organization. I should not have said this, but I’m so, so mad what they've done to this team. They've moved the team about two to three years back again." So, do we think it might be a little awkward between Paul and Erik Johnson and Jay McClement in the next few days? Actually, maybe not. Stastny and Erik roomed together at the last Olympics, and one before that at the world championships. They're very good friends. I'm sure Paul will try to say something like "aw, my old man sometimes, you know how they can get ..." Then again, this is a HOF, franchise icon ripping to shreds the move of Greg Sherman for all the world to hear. And the commotion this is going to cause no doubt will be an uncomfortable distraction for people around the team. We'll see how this plays out ...

TJ Galiardi will take Ryan O'Reilly's spot in the Avalanche lineup against the Vancouver Canucks. Kyle Cumiskey, meanwhile, won't play tonight.

No Paul Stastny tonight. The stiff back/neck hadn't quite loosened up enough this morning, so he'll sit out tonight against the Carrie Underwood's favorite team, the Senators. Stastny skated briefly, but left the ice soon after. I can't see him missing more than another game or two, at worst, but these are the Avs, so you never look on the bright side about anything with injuries. TJ Galiardi will play, though, and look for him to play center - his natural position in junior and his first bunch of games with the Avs - in place of Stastny. Milan Hejduk won't play with the sore groin, which was a disappointment because he'd skated well the other day in Chicago apparently. Day-to-day. - Here is the audio of Coach Sacco's brief talk with the media this morning. More links: - My tongue-in-cheek review of the first HBO "24/7" episode from the other night, about the Caps and Penguins. - A funny review of the same show by Down Goes Brown. - Jibbles' review of the Avs' through the 1/3rd mark. By the way, the word is spelled "Optimism."

A lot of "get me rewrite" up in the press box tonight. The done-like-dinner Avs come back to win a shocker instead over the Sharks, which might not have been as big a surprise as who scored the OT winner - Kevin Porter - and how he scored. That was a genuinely great goal the occasionally-maligned Porter scored. I guess that's why the kid once won a Hobey Baker, yeah? Biggest play of the night for my money though? The combination heads-up pass by John Liles - capitalizing after Joe Thornton foolishly went to retrieve his lost stick in the Avs' zone instead of doing what you're taught to do in hockey, go to the bench and get a twig from a teammate and stay in the play defensively - and sick wrister from Chris Stewart for the goal that made it 3-2. Stewart was a beast in the final 12 minutes, and his goal woke everybody up. Unfortunately for the Avs, that didn't include many fans in the stands. Ace columnist colleague Mark Kiszla takes a look at the Avs' ongoing attendance problems in his piece for tomorrow's Post. Only 12,436 announced tonight - and that was the announced crowd. In other words, that was the "Here's the number we'll make up to make it look more respectable" figure given by the Burgundy and Blue. I'm not going to harp forever on the attendance, and I'm not going to throw you, the fans, under the bus for it. It's always the fault of the team when they don't sell tickets. It's their problem to solve, not yours. But the fact is, the Avs entered the game ranked 25th in the NHL in attendance, were 27th last season and 26th the year before. But back to the game: A feelgood win for the Avs, but let's not ignore some of the alarm bells either. They were outshot 43-22 - though some of that had to do with the disparity in power plays. Then again, you make your own man-advantage situations with your play, and vice-versa. The defensive combo of Ryan Wilson and Adam Foote, as anyone who saw the game knows, had some major problems tonight. Fact is, they had big-time issues the other night against St. Louis too. Both were a minus-2 tonight, were on the ice for all three Sharks goals and were lucky they weren't assessed a fourth when a Sharks goal was disallowed on video review in the third (a no-goal coach Joe Sacco called a "fortunate break for us.") The question going forward is: how do you justify playing either guy right now over Jonas Holos? And what do you do when Kyle Quincey comes back, which should be soon? My opinion: Holos should be in, and you can take your pick right now over who to bench, between Wilson or Foote. Sacco got off the hook a bit tonight with the comeback, because we were all ready to get out the long knives over his decision to bench the well-playing Holos in favor of Wilson. If Holos is benched again, then Sacco clearly will have bent his rule of "we're going to play the players who are doing the best job and give us the best chance to win" mantra. I'm not saying Holos was playing like Bobby Orr, but there's no way Wilson/Foote have been better than him of late. The other question that's starting to brew: should Peter Budaj be put back on the bench when Craig Anderson is cleared to return, which should be any day now? Budaj was excellent after the Sharks made it a 3-1 game on a soft goal, so give him credit. But Anderson not only deserves, but will get the starting job when he's ready. If he's terrible for two or three straight games after that? Then maybe we'll have a goaltending controversy on our hands. But for now Budaj has proven himself to be a capable backup and deserves huge credit for keeping the team afloat in Anderson's absence. Yes, Budaj has also benefited from his team being one of the highest-scoring in the league. But the right thing to do is to give Anderson the top job back and let him prove again that he had it previously for a reason. Some links: - The postgame podcast of Avs radio man Marc Moser, which includes the entertaining call of the Porter goal.

Avs radio man Marc Moser with a hilarious call tonight, after Daniel Winnik's game-winning goal with about two minutes left. Moser, like myself, is a dedicated fan of the movie "This is Spinal Tap", voted the funniest movie of all time by Rolling Stone once I believe. I knew the Moshe had it in him to make this kind of call. Fast forward easily to the late stages of this clip and hear for yourself, and compare it to the lyrics sung by the World's Loudest Band in the clip above.