Silva: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for NFC teams.
SportsTalk: Albert Pujols signs with the Angels and Prince Fielder joins the Tigers. Which team is better now?
Ryan Callahan scored three goals as the New York Rangers beat Philadelphia 5-2 on Saturday for their seventh straight win over the Flyers.
Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
Arc's five up, five down: After No. 11 Michigan State's 58-48 upset of No. 3 Ohio State, you'd be a fool to discount the Spartans' national title chances now.
CFT: Jordan Jefferson makes it clear he wasn't happy with LSU's game plan in the Tigers' BCS Championship Game loss to Alabama.
Move over, Hollywood and NFL types, golf's two real A-listers take center stage Sunday at Pebble Beach, both in need of a win.
The United States swept favored Switzerland out of the Davis Cup on Saturday when Mardy Fish and Mike Bryan beat Roger Federer and Stanislas Wawrinka 4-6, 6-3, 6-3, 6-3.
Luis Suarez's refusal to shake hands with Patrice Evra overshadowed Manchester United's 2-1 win over rival Liverpool that lifted the defending champions to first place in the Premier League on Saturday.
Marlies Schild of Austria won her sixth World Cup slalom of the season Saturday after overall leader Lindsey Vonn and defending champion Maria Hoefl-Riesch crashed out in the opening run on the windy Pyrenees course.
Robins: It’s the Year of the Dragon on the Lunar calendar, and this Chinese influence could extend to it also being the year of the Pekingese on the green carpet at the 136th Westminster Dog Show on Tuesday.
APThe Canadiens made headlines Thursday in dealing away Jaroslav Halak, arguably the best player of the 2010 NHL postseason, to the Blues for two prospects. This has led to shock and anger by Canadiens fans and jubilation for some Blues fans. That means this is an open-and-shut case. Canadiens get fleeced; Blues come out smelling like roses, right?
That’s a nice narrative, but reality sings a different tune. The Habs are the team minimizing risk, whereas the Blues are gambling on a very good but still limited sample. After one great season, Halak is no sure bet for anything going forward.
Recent memories are always the strongest, so it’s natural for people to believed the Canadiens made a terrible mistake. How could they deal the goalie that backstopped them to two enormous upset wins in the Stanley Cup playoffs over two of the best teams the Eastern Conference had to offer?
But a look at the goalie market reveals why the Canadiens made the right call. Specifically, look at what goalies are getting paid.
The five highest-paid goalies in the NHL are Henrik Lundqvist, Cam Ward, Ryan Miller, Jean-Sebastien Giguere and Niklas Backstrom. Of that group, two, Lundqvist and Miller, are worth it. Ward might be one day, but he has not shown himself to be anywhere near elite so far. Backstrom had three great seasons before he cratered. Giguere is a giant expiring contract at this point.
The next five in salary are Miikka Kiprusoff, Tomas Vokoun, Cristobal Huet, Roberto Luongo and Martin Brodeur. Vokoun is among the NHL's best goalies. Luongo was, though his deal could turn Giguere-level ugly in the next few years as he ages. Brodeur was great but has declined. Kiprusoff was great this season but was mediocre the two prior seasons. Huet has one of the NHL's worst contracts.
The next five are Tim Thomas, Marc-Andre Fleury, Rick DiPietro, Jonas Hiller and Ilya Bryzgalov. Thomas is decent but lost his starting job last season. Fleury was awful, DiPietro is the equivalent of flushing $4.5 million down the toilet, Hiller might be a steal and Bryzgalov had a great season after a mediocre one.
What does this all mean? Of the15 top-salaried goalies for next year, four are worth their contracts. The rest range from inconsistent to wastes of cap space. This list also doesn't include four players with bad contracts that expire July 1 — Marty Turco, Evgeni Nabokov, Jose Theodore and Vesa Toskala.
Of that group, the only goalies who haven’t posted a season as good as Halak’s are DiPietro, Ward and Toskala. All of these goalies have had elite years in the past. But most never could repeat it.
Essentially, fans who are flabbergasted by the Halak deal don’t understand why Canadiens GM Pierre Gauthier wouldn't sign Halak to a long-term extension. There is the reason. Halak's career is nice but no lock to continue that way. He could go Hiller. But he could just as easily go Marc-Andre Fleury. For comparison’s sake, take a look at Fleury’s 2007-08 compared to Halak’s 2009-10.
Fleury: Regular season, 35 games, .940 save percentage. Playoffs, 20 games, .939 save percentage.
Halak: Regular season, 45 games, .933 save percentage. Playoffs, 18 games, .933 save percentage.
Halak played eight more games, but the difference isn’t much. Fleury was the top pick in the 2003 draft, so that was seen as a fulfillment of potential rather than a rather good run over a small sample. Right now it looks like like the latter instead.
Gauthier looked at the situation and decided that investing in a goalie with upside but plenty of risk wasn’t worth his money. He also saw he had a goalie who has been about as good in Carey Price, whom likely can be had for substantially less coin. So Gauthier cashed out of Halak when his value was high and took the prospects. Now instead of having two goalies, one with with a large contract, Gauthier in theory has a good prospect and a solid goalie who will make not so much money.
Meanwhile, the Blues believe they have their franchise goalie. But as the list above shows, they’re not the first team to think that only to find out otherwise.
The bottom line? Goaltender is hockey's most important position, but the NHL teams have not shown themselves to be the greatest adjudicators of talent. The list of failures exceeds the success stories when teams invest heavily at the position.
With that in mind, the Canadiens might have taken a public relations risk. But in terms of the business of hockey, Gauthier made the right move.
Ryan Callahan scored three goals as the New York Rangers beat Philadelphia 5-2 on Saturday for their seventh straight win over the Flyers.
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Jeremy Lin hit a free throw with 4.9 seconds left to overcome a dreadful second half and lift the New York Knicks to their fifth straight victory, 100-98, over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Saturday night.
Doron Lamb hit a 3-pointer with 3:18 left to put No. 1 Kentucky ahead to stay, and the Wildcats took a big step toward a Southeastern Conference regular-season title by beating Vanderbilt 69-63 Saturday night for their 17th straight win.
Wesseling: Each NFL team enters the offseason with a series of pressing needs. Sometimes a team can address them all, sometimes they ignore them all. But if a team's smart, they'll listen to us. These are the most crucial aspects for AFC teams.
