CBC-Sports

In praise of spare parts

January 19, 2009 04:42 PM | Posted by   Jim Hughson  

In baseball nobody sets out to be a utility man.

The position or lack thereof, suggests someone is not good enough to play everyday in the same spot. A jack of all trades and master of none.

But the Marco Scutaros of the baseball world are valuable and now essential. A player who can handle three or four infield positions plus the outfield gives the manager options. Versatility saves money and expands roster space.

The hockey world is now figuring that out.

In a salary cap system, with a 23-man roster and the inevitable injuries during a long season, one of the most valuable players on a hockey team is the swing man, usually a defenceman who can also play up front.

Bowman popularized trend

Years ago Scotty Bowman had Jimmy Roberts with the Montreal Canadiens. He’d use him as a forward, but Roberts could also handle a game or two on the blue-line.

Mike Keenan followed suit and for years had young defencemen play the wing on the fourth line until he trusted them on the back end. Steve Staios and Adrian Aucoin got their start that way under Iron Mike and treated it as though they were being punished. Keenan was always scoffed at as being somewhere on the lunatic fringe. When Bowman had Sergei Fedorov move back to the blue-line in Detroit he was just being the mad professor of the hockey world and few would follow his lead. Now, most coaches pretty much have to.

When a team is up against the cap, as most good ones are, and three or four players get hurt, as they most inevitably do, the option of calling another player up from the minors just isn’t there. Given the trade is an ancient form of roster repair not practiced anymore, versatility is all that’s left.

Until he got hurt, Montreal’s Mathieu Dandenault had moved from the fourth line to the blue-line because of an injury to Mike Komisarek and he had no problems since he’d learned the conversion from Bowman in Detroit. When Oiler coach Craig MacTavish needs a stout lineup for a tough game he’ll dress Jason Strudwick as a forward. Strudwick gladly accepts the role because for one, he’s in the lineup, and two, he learned to play both positions under Keenan in Vancouver.

When the Leafs got banged up early this season Ron Wilson dressed Ian White as a forward for the first time in his career and he found a nice new role as a swing man. That’s a much better job than being a healthy scratch. Now he’s back on the blue-line and better for the experience.

Minnesota Wild player Brent Burns could be a defenceman on Team Canada but he’s spent a good deal of time this season up front for Jacques Lemaire and he treats the switch as a nice change not an imposition because he’s been doing it since he arrived in the NHL.

Derek Meech, Ladislav Smid, Alexei Semenov and Christoph Schubert are others who’ve gone back and they won’t be the last. More will follow as rosters get thinner and the cap gets lower.

The swing man might not be a team’s MVP, but he is becoming an essential player. I’m not sure minor hockey players will ever aspire to that role, but just in case, I’d make sure my young forwards work hard on backward skating.

Back-up goalies earning their keep

And while we’re on the topic of valuable players, how about the performance of the members of the back-up goaltender’s union all around the NHL?

Most teams spend a boat load of cash on their starter so the back-up goalie is a cheap understudy whose main purpose is to take high, hard ones in practice. But around the league injury and desperation have thrust the lonely benchwarmers into the spotlight.

pick, and suddenly he has one of the best save percentages in the league. Now Florida coach Peter DeBoer has a viable alternative to Tomas Vokoun.

The New Jersey Devils haven’t missed a beat, in fact have picked up their pace, with their number three goalie Scott Clemmensen performing admirably in the absence of Martin Brodeur.

Brent Johnson has been better than Jose Theodore in Washington after being discarded at the end of last season. Andrew Raycroft is propping up the Avalanche, Brian Boucher has lost only once for San Jose, Pekka Rinne has been great for Nashville and Antero Niittymaki has the best record with the Flyers.

As of Jan. 16, the collective record of goalies that started the season as their team’s back-up was 35 wins over .500 and 14 of them had winning records. An admirable stat for the guys who’s goals-against average is supposed to look like the price of a hot lunch.

And the head of their union should be Boston’s Tim Thomas who’s gone from forgotten to Finland to NHL all-star. The men who lift the door latch are making more of a contribution than in any recent year. And if a few more, like Thomas, survive the test of time there might be teams rethinking how much cap space they use on the starter.

In the meantime, we should honour them with an award for the best performance by a goaltender in a supporting role. We’ll name it for Mike Veisor and every good back-up should know exactly who he is.

Here’s to the swing men and back-ups. Spare parts making NHL teams run.

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