Braun Gets 65 Games For 'Roids

From "Hebrew Hammer" To "Jewish Juicer"

Yesterday, Major League Baseball dropped the hammer on Ryan Braun suspending him for the remainder of the season, which turns out to be 65 games, for his involvement with Biogenesis and his actions when he had his first positive test. Once again it's another black eye for baseball in which a player of star-status turns out to be a juicer. Now, you guys all know that hockey is my first sports love, but I do love me some baseball. There's something special about going to a game, drinking some beers, eating some hot dogs, and watching America's pastime. However, in the past decade or so, the luster is wearing off. You can blame the big-money contracts these players are getting causing loyalty to be thrown to the side and ticket prices to shoot up. The bigger problem is the steroid use. You become skeptical of every home run now. It's sad, because the home run is the best part of a baseball game. And when someone is having a great season power-wise, what's the first thing you say? "He's got to be on 'roids." I feel bad for Chris Davis this year. He's having a MONSTER year, but in this era of baseball, there will be skeptics. Me? I just pray that he's clean.

The face of a cheater. (Photo credit: Google Images)

Anyway, back to Braun. When are athletes going to stop saying that they made a mistake and just say that they knowing did something stupid/illegal? A mistake is forgetting an ingredient in a recipe. A mistake is missing your exit on the highway when you're going somewhere for the first time. A mistake is waking up late for work. A mistake is NOT willingly taking an illegal substance to perform better in professional sports. That's stupidity. Ryan Braun can apologize all he wants, but his image is tarnished forever. I don't think 65 games is enough. I think he should be suspended a full calendar year - no baseball activities until July 22nd, 2014. Especially since he tried to fight his first positive test in 2011. He never actually denied that it was positive, he just said the process of analyzing the sample was wrong. It's sad to see every slugger under scrutiny now, but that's era of baseball we live in now. Until MLB decides to start banning players from the game for tarnishing its image through steroids and banned substances, players will continue to use them because they know they can still get back to playing once they serve a long suspension.

A-Rod Next?

Real quickly on Alex Rodriguez. Apparently, the evidence against A-Rod is "far beyond" that of Ryan Braun, according to TJ Quinn of ESPN. If that is the case, I hope MLB does not offer A-Rod a plea deal. He's been implicated in numerous investigations, and it's about time MLB tell A-Rod that enough is enough. Allegedly, A-Rod also tampered with the Biogenesis inverstigation. If that is the case, he should be banned from baseball for life. That's way worse, in my opinion, than just about anything done before him. Pete Rose has to be sitting somewhere watching all of this happen wondering, "How the hell am I banned from baseball while these actual cheaters are allowed a second chance?!" It makes no sense to me either. I've read that MLB is not going to take action on A-Rod immediately. Now, we'll all just wait and see what MLB has in store for baseball's most disappointing person.

Ilya Kovalchuk Announces His Retireme--WHAT?!

That was my reaction when I got that notification on my phone from the NHL GameCenter app while I was at work. Needless to say, I was stunned. Honestly, I don't know how I held myself together. This post is going to be cathartic for me, and it's going to help me gather my thoughts and put some perspective on all of this. I'm going to split this into two parts. One part is going to be the emotional fan's point of view. The other part is going to be the viewpoint of an objective third party (read: journalist, sports businessman).

How Could He?!

I can't believe this! Retired?! To go back to Russia?! I though he liked it here in New Jersey, hence the 15-year contract. This is completely ridiculous. We are so screwed now. We have no one that can consistently score goals! Our best goal-scorer is thirty-seven and isn't getting any younger. We are going to be one of the worst teams in the league next year. I can't believe it. I gave him the benefit of the doubt for his entire tenure with the Devils. I made EVERY excuse in the book for him because I so desperately wanted this team to be successful with him, and this is how he treats the fans?! Good riddance you lazy bum! Go back to Russia so you can just cherry-pick at the blue line and play no defense. We all know that you never fully bought into playing complete hockey with New Jersey. I believed that he was going to turn over a leaf and be different that other Russians before him. Nope, they're all the same (Malkin and Datsyuk notwithstanding). Now, I understand all of the Canadian reporters' disdain towards Russian players. You'd never see a Swede do this. You'd never see a Finn do this. You'd never see a Czech do this. I hope all of the Russian players that actually want to play in the NHL are happy with Kovalchuk. He pretty much killed any chance of any Russian player getting a long-term deal. No team is going to want to commit big money to a player they fear is going to jump ship for an inferior league. We put a ton of resources towards Kovalchuk that it cost us Zach Parise. Now neither of them are on our team! How did we let this happen?! I was planning on burning my Kovalchuk jerseys (yes, plural) last night after I got home from work, but my mom talked me out of it. I'm giving my SKA one away for five bucks, and I'll light up my Devils one once we start using the fireplace at home. This is going to be a long season for this team and the fans.

Let's Take a Step Back Here

Yes, Kovalchuk running away does put the Devils in a huge hole in the short-term. The timing of this could have been better for the team, but a lot of things "coulda, shoulda, woulda" happened here. We can't dwell on that. It happened, and Lou and co. have to figure this one out. Let's look at this from a purely financial standpoint. We all know the Devils aren't the most financially stable team in the world. Kovalchuk's contract was going to be a burden on the back end of it. He was slated to make $56 million in the next five years alone and $77 million over the next twelve years. This helps the Devils financial situation tremendously. You can't say Jeff Vanderbeek isn't privately celebrating this. Only negative to this financially is that any prospective buyer might not inject as much cash as they would have before, but any new owner (that IS NOT looking to move the team) would be better than JVB. The next thing you have to look at the makeup of the team itself. As it stands right now, we seem incredibly devoid of any scoring outside of Patrik Elias. However, one my buddies I interned with at the Devils and I posted a picture that explained the 2003 Cup-winning squad. No player on that team had more than 57 points that year. Yes, it was a full 82-game season. It gave me a ton of perspective on the outlook for next season. I can see this team using this situation as a rallying point throughout the entire season. This team has always played better with a chip on their shoulder. I have no intention of not getting my partial season tickets again. I'm sticking by this team 100%. I just hope Lou is able to do something to make this season not a total disaster. If anyone can get a team out of this mess, it's Lou Lamoriello. I'm sure he's got some tricks up his sleeve. I'm sure if he can convince Mike Gillis to give us Cory Schneider for only our first-round pick this year, he can get Darcy Regier to give us Thomas Vanek without giving up Adam Larsson. I'll be watching very closely to see what Lou has in store for the team and the fans. Whatever happens, I hope it is for the best. LET'S GO DEVILS!

The aforementioned picture. (Photo credit: Zach Antonucci)

Let's See How The Devils Are Doing

So, I decided to change the name of my blog. "Orlando's Overtime" just came to me one day and I really liked it. It makes sense too; I blog about what happens when the games end. Anyway, since the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup, all thirty NHL team have been very busy this offseason. I'm going to key in on the Devils because, to some of my friends, I'm an insider. I'm not, I'd like to be, but I try to stay on top Devils news. Generally speaking, I'm very happy with our offseason moves.

Goaltending

We all know Marty Brodeur isn't getting any younger and that his retirement is coming a lot sooner than every Devils fan would like to admit. We have some younger guys in our pipeline, but nobody is really sure how they are going to pan out. The Devils were mentioned in rumors of just about every goalie on the trading block, which led me to believe Lou was active trying to get a goalie to step in once Marty retires. Then the NHL Draft happened. I was bummed that I couldn't go to the draft because it was at the Prudential Center. The Devils had the 9th pick. Here I am hoping that we don't take defense and take a dynamic scoring winger. On Twitter, I see rumblings of a trade.

Our future. (Photo credit: Google Images)

With us? The 9th pick? No, we're not trading our pick, are we? Then Gary Bettman comes to the podium and announces that we trading the 9th overall pick to Vancouver for Cory Schneider. WHAT?! That's all it took to get Schneider?! Lou Lamoriello strikes again! He absolutely FLEECED Mike Gillis in that deal. All of the sudden, the Devils' situation in net after Marty is clear; Cory Schneider is the future in New Jersey. Sorry Keith Kincaid, Jeff Frazee, Scott Wedgewood, and Maxime Clermont. You guys just weren't cutting it enough for Lou, I guess.

Defense

This offseason for the Devils' defense is going to be defined by training camp. We have a bunch of young guys in our pipeline that look to challenge for a spot on the big club. Regarding the guys already (presumably) on the squad, Henrik Tallinder was traded to Buffalo in a trade that was about as pure of a salary dump as you can have. That's $3.375 million off the books for next season, and it opens up a spot for a young guy to make the team. Good, the Devils can FINALLY start to get younger. Peter Harrold was also re-signed, which I like. Harrold has grown on me, so I'm glad we were able to keep him on board. However, Lou brought back Marek Zidlicky for another year at $3 million. At least I'll have somebody to heckle every single game. I DO NOT like Zidlicky. He's old, he can't play defense, he can barely hold the blueline on the powerplay, and he's good for at least one momentum-killing, bone-headed penalty every game. Lou did make it sound like he's not done revamping the defense, though.

Time for Larsson to step up. (Photo credit: Google Images)

He said that re-signing Zidlicky allowed for some flexibility to make more moves if he had to. What this offseason does signal is that it's time to take the training wheels off of Adam Larsson. Put the guy in the top pairing. Put him on the powerplay next to Kovy. Let him kill penalties. He has the potential to have his number up in the rafters next to Stevens, Daneyko, and Niedermayer. It's time to start giving him opportunity to realize that potential and take his game to the next level.

Forwards

This seems to be where most of the focus is now with the Devils. We were able to lock up Patrik Elias for three more years. At the end up this contract, Elias will have played for the Devils for twenty years, and it will all but assure that he retires playing for only the New Jersey Devils in his career. As I had been saying for the entire season and offseason before it happened, we lost David Clarkson to the Toronto Maple Leafs. They signed him to a seven year deal with an AAV of $5.25 million.

Ryane Clowe (right) will add more toughness. (Photo credit: Google Images)

I love Clarkie, but not at that price. I'm glad the Devils didn't give him that insane contract. To replace Clarkson, we signed Ryane Clowe for five years with an AAV of $4.85 million. This is going to be risky. If he stays healthy, this can be a great deal for us. If the injury bug rears its ugly head, this becomes a very bad contract. We also signed Michael Ryder for two years with an AAV of $3.5 million. I like this signing because Ryder can definitely put the puck in the net, and that was something that the team was missing last year.