Other complaints about Brendan Shanahan

Despite an entertaining first week of action on the ice, it seems like all anyone wants to talk about these days is Brendan Shanahan. After an initial honeymoon period that faded quickly, the NHL's senior vice-president of player safety and hockey operations has come under heavy fire over his recent rulings on player discipline.

Don Cherry has been the highest profile critic of Shanahan's harsher approach to suspensions, but he's certainly not alone. Media reports have indicated that at least some general managers are uncomfortable with Shanahan's rulings, and plenty of fans have voiced their concerns as well.

At the very least, you might assume that his discipline decisions are the only area where Shanahan is feeling the heat. But you'd be wrong. According to my top secret sources, there's a long list of issues and grievances with Shanahan that date back to the early days of his career.

Here's a sample of some of the hockey world's other complaints about Brendan Shanahan.

• In a cruel practical joke, spent his entire rookie year with the Devils whispering moronic coaching strategies into the ear of sleeping roommate John MacLean.
  
  
• Completely screwed up his shootout attempt at the Nagano Olympics when he failed to be Wayne Gretzky.
  
  
• Has been an NHL VP for almost two years now and has spent lots of time with Gary Bettman, yet has apparently still not taken him aside and convinced him to stop doing that "get overly defensive and make the whole press conference uncomfortable" thing.
  
  
• Whenever I get a penalty I don't agree with and then do the secret signal where I tug on my ear three times in the penalty box, the referee still has a job the next day. (Submitted by Gregory Campbell.)
  

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Brendan Shanahan's video message to NHL players

After weeks of near-unanimous praise, the hockey world seems to have turned on Brendan Shanahan. He's been criticized by various media, anonymous GMs and Don Cherry, and many fans are starting to wonder whether he's really an improvement over Colin Campbell.

To his credit, Shanahan doesn't seem to be letting the negativity get to him. From all accounts, he's shrugged off the criticism as an unpleasant but inevitable part of the job. And he's standing by his rulings, pointing out more than once that they're consistent with the introductory video he sent to all NHL players before the season began.

But while we've all heard about this infamous video, nobody outside the league had seen it... until now. DGB spies were able to get their hands on a copy, and let's just say it's not quite what we were expecting.

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Thinking outside the box: Strategic shifts from the NHL's opening weekend

At first they thought the coach was crazy,
but eventually they had to admit that the
defensive zone did look like a surprised bear.

The NHL regular season has arrived, withal 30 teams having seen action by the weekend. And if you settled in to watch your favourite team's opening games and felt like something seemed different, you may be right.

After a long off-season of planning and an exhibition schedule for fine-tuning, the opening of the regular season is the time for teams to unveil the new systems and strategies that they hope will translate into improved results. Whether it's a change in coaching, new personnel or just a different approach to certain game situations, most teams have tweaked something.

These changes are often subtle and can be difficult for the casual fan to notice. To help, I've spoken to several scouts and front office executives and they outlined some of the most important strategic shifts to watch for early in the season.

Philadelphia Flyers - Are trying a bold new strategy where the on-the-fly line changes executed by the team every minute or so will no longer include the goaltender.

Los Angeles - Are working hard in practice on improving Drew Doughty's accuracy from the point, since this year every single one of his slap shots seems to be heading directly for the front office's private suite for some reason.

Montreal Canadiens - Are apparently playing under the new slogan "Let's go on out there and be part of a moment that thousands of people have been waiting 15 years for and completely ruin it".

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2011-12 Season Preview - Western Conference

The 2011-12 season preview continues today with the Western Conference. (You can find yesterday's Eastern Conference preview here.)

Pacific Division

San Jose Sharks: The team is expecting strong seasons from the various players who were recently called up from their farm team in Minnesota.

Anaheim Ducks: Of all the top lines in the Western Conference, experts agree that the Ducks' trio of Corey Perry, Ryan Getzlaf and Bobby Ryan is without question the best one to feature three different DNA sequences.

Phoenix Coyotes: Not sure if it's a bad sign, but Paul Bissionnette's most recent 140-character tweet included the full name of every one of the team's season ticket holders.

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2011-12 Season Preview - Eastern Conference

With the NHL's season opener just days away, it's time for an in-depth season preview of all 30 teams. Today we'll look at the Eastern Conference, with the Western Conference coming up tomorrow. (The Western Conference preview is here.)

Atlantic Division

Philadelphia Flyers: Finally solved their goaltending problem once and for all, in the sense that their problem was that fans weren't sure which goaltender to blame for destroying their salary cap.

Pittsburgh Penguins: Matt Cooke says he understands that his attempt to reform his game will have ups and downs, but still admits he could do without Brendan Shanahan randomly jumping out of the shadows, hitting him in the nose with a rolled up newspaper, and yelling "NO to whatever you were thinking just now."

New York Islanders: Signed John Tavares to a six-year contract that will guarantee he stays in Long Island for another year or two.

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