Beyond Amateur

Earlier today, I took a run at Mark Kiszla's ridiculous piece on the Wild-Avs series that appeared in today's Denver Post. Now, Matt delivers the knockout blow in a letter he sent to Kiszla:

I know you didn't write that article - it had to be written by a 5th grader who's emotionally torn up over the home team's loss. I know a professional columnist couldn't possibly write such an ignorant article devoid of facts. It's also clear the author has never played hockey--on this point, I'm not sure if that fits your description or not.

Both the Wild and Avalanche are more finesse than tough. Most teams get their nastiness from the blueline. Looking at the two teams defensive units, it's pretty clear Colorado has the more stout blueline as evidenced by its average penalty minutes per games played. I wouldn't be surprised if the Wild had the lowest penalized group of defensemen in the league. This wouldn't support your case though, so I can understand how you wouldn't do any research to see if your emotional tirade checked out with the actual facts.



You're going to say, but it's Minnesota's forwards (Simon, Boogaard, Fedoruk and Voros) that are the problem. You're making some ground up here, but taking a closer look at the two teams and one will find Colorado has 3 guys with more than 100 PIMs and the Wild with 2 (if you threw Salei into this mix [98 PIMs], the Avalanche would have 4 guys with more than 100 PIMs). If you were to exclude the goaltenders and look both rosters and its PIMs and GP, one would find the Avalanche average .72 PIMs/GP versus the Wild at .77 PIMs/GP over the course of the regular season. At this rate, the difference is almost statistically insignificant. Furthermore, I would argue that the regular season is more heavily refereed and so if the Wild were truly a "goon it up bunch" as you refer to them as, it would flow threw the numbers over 82 games.

Additionally, don't lie to yourself - Simon didn't play the first two games of the playoffs and logged exactly 5 minutes and 50 seconds last night. Boogaard logged 3 minutes and 43 seconds last night and has averaged just over 6 minutes per game in these playoffs. Translation: these guys are never on the ice. Voros wasn't dressed in game one, played 7 minutes in game two and was then used much more in game 3 (+14 minutes) as a result of Parrish and Radivojevic going down with injuries. These guys don't get hurt - Voros doesn't play this series. So now we're talking the Wild have Todd Fedoruk to try and neutralize Cody McLeod and the idiot that is Ian Laperriere. You see, when you actually look at what's going on - Lemaire is dressing Boogaard and Simon only to serve as reminders for the opponent to be careful. Call it mental warfare if you will.

Finally, over the 82 game regular season, your 'free-flowing-offensive-minded' Avalanche scored 227 goals - exactly 7 more than the 'goon-it-up-clutch-and-grab-defensive-minded' Wild. More unbelievable, you try and justify your tale because Minnesota is located in the upper-Midwest with cold winters and that the Wild uniforms are ugly. This is as bad as journalism gets - it's beyond amateur. I think you probably have a job only because your readership doesn't actually understand than game quite like Minnesotans (of which I'm not) - which of course allows you to write whatever nonsense you choose...

And the linesmen are stepping in to stop the beating.

By the way, the comments on Kiszla's article (378 at last count) are also priceless and almost uniformally dismissive:

Could the Post please send Kiszla back to covering the latest in ladies handbags, and Major League Soccer's Colorado Rapids and let someone who knows something about hockey fill up space on the page. If you're looking for someone, there are thousands of 12 year old girls in Minnesota who would be much better suited for the job.