Andy Murray Gets Jobbed!
The Eastern media rallied around Bruins coach Claude Julien, who coached the deep and skilled Boston team to a 116-point finish this season. The voters gave Julien the Jack Adams Award for being the NHL’s top coach in 2008-09.
The West Coast media rallied behind Sharks coach Todd McLellan, who coached his deep and skilled team to an impressive season. So Blues coach Andy Murray got overlooked int he voting.
This, of course, is an outrage.
Neither Julien nor McLellan faced the adversity Murray faced. Andy Murray lost top defenseman Erik Johnson before the season started, due to the famous Golf Cart Incident.
Would-be top gun Paul Kariya barely played, due to a hip injury. Eric Brewer tried to play with a chronic neck injury, but he finally shut it down.
Top center Andy McDonald missed a big chunk of time. Goaltender Manny Legace blew up.
Yet Murray was able to groom his kids and coax great effort from fill-ins like B.J. Crombeen, Brad Winchester and Mike Weaver. Back-go goaltender Chris Mason took charge.
Dead last in the NHL’s Western Conference midway through the season, the Blues somehow charged all the way into the No. 6 playoff seed. Their 25-9-7 sprint was astonishing, given their depleted roster.
AROUND THE RINKS: TSN reported that the Sedin Twins are demanding identical 12-year, $63 million deals fromt the Canucks. That’s crazy money, of course, but the Puck Daddy blog notes that the length of those deals creates some cap friendliness for Vancouver . . . Hockey Buzz is expecting the Islanders to take huge offensive defenseman Victor Hedman, which might convince Tampa Bay to move the second overall pick (John Tavares) and stick with Steven Stamkos and Vincent Lecavalier at center. In that scenario, Nashville could move up to get Tavares by dangling defenseman Shea Weber.
Jobbed?
I can’t believe you quoted Eklund!
Screwed more like it…
Hosed again by the typical bias of the left coast & east coast media. The Blues need to dominate these clowns to gain any respect. The Blues suffer from too many; one & outer playoff disease. If the Blues can get back to year 1 & 2 levels, where they got to the finals, maybe then our team would get more respect. Good job, Andy!!!!! Now lets kick some hockey booty this season And get another quality G to compliment Chris Mason.
I agree that Andy Murray got screwed, and that if he had been in a different market, he would have won hands down, but not all the awards went to players represented by the East Coast and West Coast media…Selke, Byng, Masterston, and Calder were all Central Division players, and the Masterston and Calder went to teams that have less credibility than the Blues.
Coach Murray was deserving, but all three coaches nominated are worthy of the award. Julien coached to a larger point increase over the previous season than Murray with a team that was not expected to compete for tops in the conference.
I understand that the Blues overcame a lot and that no coach would have swapped places with Murray, but lets stop being such homers. It’s an honor to have been nominated. Murray didn’t make excuses for the team’s bad luck during the season, why should we play that game now?
Let’s face it. With the Blues’ record, regardless of the injuries, its a surprise that AM was even nominated. Coach of the Year always goes to a coach of a top winning team.