NHL Franchise Boys

Matthew Wuest was a hero to math-challenged sports writers. When he started a website called CapGeek.com in 2009, hockey reporters could hardly believe it was true. You mean, all you have to do is click on this website and scroll to your team, and the salaries of players will all be perfectly arranged as to their implications to the overall team cap? Wuest, a former reporter with Metro Halifax, died of colon cancer on March 19, 2015 at age 35. He disbanded CapGeek.com shortly before his death, and the site lives on only in archived form. For several weeks, there was no place to go for hockey people to explore the increasingly relevant world of salary-cap information.

Enter Tom Poraszka, who wants to carry on the legacy of Wuest with his site GeneralFanager.com. Since May, Poraszka’s site has become a leading go-to source of information of the kind that CapGeek provided. It has every team’s payroll broken down player by player, along with future season contract implications for each team. Poraszka, a tech engineer from the Toronto area, was just one of the many frustrated, diehard hockey fans who thirsted for the information Wuest provided. What better way to get it than to do the same thing he did?

“When CapGeek went down, there was just such a void of information,” Poraszka said. “Anytime you have an argument about a player’s worth, the cap information becomes so vital. I didn’t think my site would take off, because I thought the NHL or the NHLPA would take over and was surprised when they didn’t.”

Actually, the NHLPA website lists every player’s salary. But it is only for the current season, and there is no team-wide list. The NHL’s website does not list any salary information.

Poraszka, who says he is averaging more than 10,000 unique visitors a day and expects that to increase more as the hockey season starts, hopes to add more interactive features to his site and wants to better educate his visitors about the collective bargaining agreement. It’s much more complicated than the average fans thinks, he said, pointing out a couple of offseason trades. “When Chris Pronger was traded by Philadelphia to Phoenix for cap reasons, a lot of people got it wrong. And when Sam Gagner went to Philly as part of the deal, a lot of people didn’t realize he went to Tampa Bay first, and they picked up part of his salary, so the cap numbers a lot of people reported at first were wrong,” Poraszka said. “We were able to verify the correct numbers.”

Poraszka said he has made professional contacts with many agents, general managers and NHL beat writers since launching his site. That is crucial, he said, in getting ready information that is correct. “So many of those people have reached out to me. They want a site that is accurate and dependable. Most of them don’t have the time to compute it all into a large database,” Poraszka said. How many hours is Poraszka putting into Generalfanager.com, apart from his day job? “Probably 40 hours a week,” he said. “I probably will put some ads on the site to try and make ends meet. Otherwise, this is a labor of love.”

Thanks Tom and keep up the great work!

 

It’s that time again…. YEAH – WOOHOO !!!!!

This quick exit from the playoffs should not have surprised anyone. If not for a tremendous season from Price, the Habs might have never made the playoffs to begin with. While the Habs motto is “No Excuses”, they seem to have plenty as they clean out their lockers:

1) No top line center: neither Plekanec nor Desharnais is a good fit for the job.

2) No scorers: we could use at least two top-six caliber wingers who are capable of finishing a play by lighting the lamp.

3) No coaching: despite having led the team to an Atlantic Division title, there’s no love-fest with Therrien and the frustrating limitations of his defense-first system. His inability to match the adjustments made by Tampa Bay or even motivate his troops to meet their opponent’s intensity in this must-win game, will only fire up the pro-coaching change crowd.

4) No veteran leadership: a 36-year-old defenceman with 66-year-old knees plays 25 minutes a game on the first pairing and the power play and was all-around lousy

5) No size: the most dangerous forward in the playoffs was 5’9″ and was drafted in the fifth round

6) No special teams: on the PK, his name was CAREY PRICE and on the PP…. let’s not even go there!

Going into 2015-2016, the Habs have some key elements in place…

– an elite goaltender in Price (28 years old); a stud defenceman in Subban (26 years old); a forward who can score in Pacioretty (27 years old)

– Galchenyuk and Eller should be designated the number 1 and 2 centres. They have the size and the talent. It’s time to give the kids a chance to prove what they can do

– Gallagher is the Energizer Bunny… the only concern being his ability to survive the pounding he takes on every shift

– De La Rose showed promise and may develop into a good third-line forward who might even score 10-15 goals

– Beaulieu and Pateryn are ready to become NHL regulars

– Petry… should be Bergevin’s top priority. He will have to come up with some very creative math to keep Petry in Montreal

While we can’t expect Bergevin to find all the missing pieces over the summer, he certainly has his hands full if he wants to supplement the talents of his existing stars within the three to five year window that will mark the peak of their NHL careers.

Thanks for a fun-filled season of hope. Enjoy the summer and see you in the Fall!