Silver Nuggets: Can Erik Karlsson one day win the Norris Trophy?

He plays for the Sens, he’ll never win. If he wore a Leafs jersey, he would be a God. #biasedmedia

Interesting article over at Sensay. Too bad about the (totally predictable) tear down in the Sun today.

If/when Karlsson plays with a huge, stay at home defenceman his +/- will improve and he will look better defensively. No offence to Kuba who has been solid this season, but he will never be the lesser half of a Norris nominated defensive pairing. Cowen could be, Gyrba and Borowiecki don’t look like they have that much potential, maybe whoever we draft with our first this year will be (in this draft we would be almost insane not to draft a defenceman unless we are picking in the top 5)?I think more than Karlsson’s own development the luxury of having Brent Seabrook, Niklas Kronwall, Matt Greene, or Brooks Orpik will factor into him winning the Norris.

Regardless of his alleged defensive ability (which I think is underrated), he scored 30 goals in 2008-09. 31 goals. By a defenseman. In only 68 games. Hadn’t happened since 1992-93.

So, that Sun article about Spezza being a hero of Nugent Hopkins starts by talking about a supposed quote of Filatov’s when, apparently, a former coach was showing him video of situations where they wanted him to crash the net and create rebound opportunities. Apparently, Filatov backed off after a few clips and said “Filly don’t do rebounds.”

This quote, frankly, confuses the heck out of me. It just SOUNDS fake. My first thought was that it was a Garrioch invention, but looking it up on the internet, I found that a Columbus reporter indeed said he had a source on this quote. It still didn’t sound to me like anything anyone would actually say, so much as something someone who wants everyone to hate Filatov to think he said, so I kept reading. I then found this interesting comment on the Ottawa Citizen’s SenatorsExtra story about this quote.

jacketscausemenothingbutpain says:

November 19, 2011 at 12:14 pm

Blue jackets victim here – Folks, a little perspective from Columbus. What is being ignored is that Portzline, who filed the original report, works for the Columbus Dispatch. Columbus is a one newspaper town and the Dispatch is it. Here’s where it gets juicy, the Dispatch are partial owners of the Jackets. So, year after year, we get reporting that is on it’s best day biased, on it’s worse, pure propaganda. The Jackets blew it with "Filly". The tried to turn a racehorse into a plow horse because Hitchcock was the coach and when Hitch was in Columbus, he wanted a team filled with 260 pound defensemen. Why did Steve Mason look good as a rookie and has been horrible since? Columbus played defense – and nothing else – back then. Could "Filly" have said it? Maybe. I wasn’t there. Neither was Portzline. But since Filatov was, at that time, making people question how the Jackets were being run, I would put my money on this being team propaganda. Can’t question management, especially when the Dispatch is part of that management! Here’s what you need to know about the Jackets, beside that they are awful – the President of the team was the majority owner’s financial advisor. That’s his hockey background – trading stocks. If you owned a hockey team, would you hire your stock broker to run it? Me, neither. The team has been losing money for years, the arena is always half empty – except when a visiting team’s fans pack the place – and the Jackets are looking for a taxpayer bailout. So, sure, slander the players! Throw anyone and everyone under the bus, but NEVER take responsibility for mismanaging the team! So, ANYTHING you read from the Dispatch, read with a healthy dose of skepticism. There is an agenda there and it’s not good, investigative reporting. Eleven years of horrible hockey. Is that really just the fault of JUST the players and the coaches? Absolutely not. But saying anything else jeopardizes the bailout and enrages the bosses. And we can’t have that! So, tip of the cap to you Sensay. You are quite right to be skeptical. And shame on you Mr. Gordon for automatically giving a colleague the benefit of the doubt without understanding the dynamics of working for the Dispatch. I don’t blame Portzline. He probably has a family to feed. But, you, Mr. Gordon are not beholden to the Dispatch. You could have peeked under the rug and realized a LOT of dust is being swept under there.

Interesting little tidbit that makes me appreciate what we’ve got here in Ottawa. Sure, the Sun is drivel, and some legitimate complaints can be made about some of the team’s decisions, but we sure don’t have to put up crap like this…