Sports Illustrated‘s Michael Farberhad an interesting look at John Collins, the NHL’s chief operating officer.

Collins came from the NFL and is credited with making the NHL more event-driven, coming up with ideas like hyping the annual outdoor game, starting the season in Europe, and making the All-Star game a sort of real-life fantasy draft.

The article is largely complimentary, but Farber does take issue with aspects of Collins’ philosophy:

You probably don’t know his name, but you do know his signature as the NHL’s P.T. Barnum. While the lawyerly [NHL Commissioner Gary] Bettman generally is about taking things step by step, Collins, the business guy, breathlessly rushes to the next thing, pushing, mining for opportunity and never having a bad hair day. The NHL’s 1,230 regular season games— OK, 1,229, after the Winter Classic— seem to have become an interregnum connecting the new narrative as the league lurches from one special event to the next.

I too have some concerns about what Collins is doing to the league. More and more, mainstream media NHL news seems to be about either one-off special events, like the Winter Classic and the All-Star draft, or horrible violence associated with the game. But the regular season, for the most part, is completely ignored, left for the fans to discuss amongst themselves.

Part of that is because the NHL season is so long and grueling. It’s hard for fans to sustain a level of excitement for 82 games; I’m not sure it’s fair or realistic to expect the local media to maintain it.

The regular season is also often ignored because the post-season is considered to be hockey’s real season. After all, more than half of the league’s teams make it into the playoffs. That’s where the games really begin to count.

But the disappointing thing is that Collins comes from the NFL, where the regular season games are incredibly important (I’m assuming no one from Indianapolis is reading this…). Obviously, that’s because of the much shorter season, but not entirely (team parity is also probably a factor,and that’s something else the NHL is struggling to successfully accomplish). Just about every regular season NFL game is an event, enjoyed by fans of the teams playing, but also non-fans.

The NHL can create that kind of excitement around regular season games. They can do it by building schedules with more rivalries. They can do it by taking serious steps to curb violence in the game, rather than using PowerPoint to craft circular excuses for player misbehavior. They can allow skill to flourish in front of goaltenders, rather than to allow it to be constantly pinned against the boards.

Collins has non-fans talking about the NHL. He deserves credit for that. But he’s doing so at the expense of the regular season. He’s turning the regular season into some European games, followed by the Winter Classic, followed by the All-Star game, followed by the trade deadline, followed by the post-season. The regular season may as well be a montage.

Is Collins creating hockey fans or is he tricking people into watching a few select games, only to return to their non-hockey ways? The NFL season culminates in the Super Bowl, and while a lot of non-football fans watch the final game of the season, the Super Bowl really is about a journey that started in the regular season.

It would be great if Collins could try and do that for the NHL, also.

You know. Rather than trying to talk the league into a regular season game played on roller skating donkeys.

Larry Brooks hada nice little appreciation of Brad Richards yesterday.

Brooks also credited New York Rangers coach John Tortorella, who moved Richards off of Marian Gaborik’s line when it became obvious the two just weren’t clicking.

Tortorella deserves a lot of credit for his handling of Richards.

Given Richards salary, it would seem that he belongs on a top line. But given that Richards’ north-south North American style doesn’t seem like it will ever mesh with Gaborik’s more European east-west leanings, Tortorella doesn’t press the issue (at even strength, anyway).

Instead, Tortorella embraced Richards for the player he is. For all of his offensive talents, Richards is really just a solid two-way player who happens to have a great shot. To leave him as a top-line center would have negated some of his defensive strengths.

Tortorella figured that out back in October, when he first separated Richards from Gaborik, putting him on a more physical line between Ryan Callahan and Brandon Dubinsky.Richards told theNew York Posthe appreciated the move:

I’m not seeing the game the way I should be, and when that’s the case and things feel they’re moving quicker than they should, sometimes getting me to grind it out is the best way to get me going, and Torts knows that…Playing with Cally and Dubi, working down low and having zone time, I believe that will be good for me and good for the team.

Playing to Richards’ defensive strengths is a bit of a culture shift for the Rangers. The past few years have seen the team bring in defensive specialists who were expected to perform offensive roles. Chris Drury was the latest victim of that policy, with Bobby Holik coming (and failing) before that.

Surely Tortorella saw what the pressure of needing to live up to a contract did to Drury, often rendering him both defensively and offensively weak. Seeing the same thing starting to happen to Richards, Tortorella decided to have him focus on defense.

And a funny thing happened. Offense came out of defense. Richards became comfortable shooting the puck more. He learned to get comfortable playing down low on the power play. He’s even looked connected to Gaborik when they’ve played on the same power play unit.

Brooks is right that Richards has been good for the Rangers. But a huge part of his success is due to his playing for a coach that plays to Richards’ strengths. Richards is paid like a top offensive player, but his true strength is his versatility in both ends.

Richards season picked up once he was allowed to properly practice his two-way game.

Tortorella deserves a lot of credit for giving Richards that kind of opportunity, despite what it says on Richards’ paycheck.

It was a little bit surprising when the St. Louis Blues fired coach Davis Payne earlier this month. The Blues were 6-7. Not great, but certainly not horrible.

It was even more surprisingly when GM Doug Armstrong hired Ken Hitchcock as the new coach, since the rumors had Hitchcock taking over in Columbus.

Armstrong obviously didn’t have much faith in Payne, but he alsogave theSt. Louis Post-Dispatchan interesting reason for the Hitchcock import:

The reality is, this is a business and we have a number of players that are going to want huge economic rewards over the next 18 months and we need to know what we have in these players. You want to make wise investments and I thought having an experienced coach would give us a better opportunity to know exactly what we had.

In other words, Armstrong felt Davis wasn’t doing enough of a job kicking the tires of guys like TJ Oshie, Chris Stewart, Carlo Colaiacovo, Alex Pietrangelo, and Patrik Berglund, none of whom are under contract past 2013.

It’s a smart move by Armstrong. GMs need to be patient, but too much patience can lead to bad contract situations.

With Payne, Armstrong couldn’t tell if it was the players or the coaches who weren’t performing. With Hitchcock, he’s getting a clearer picture. The Blues are 7-1-2 under Hitchcock and are looking better. Oshie has three goals in that stretch. Defenseman Pietrangelo has two goals under Hitchcock. This data gives Armstrong a clearer picture of where coaching challenges end and talent (or lack thereof) begins.

It’s something more GMs should consider. How can GMs sign players to contracts when they’re not sure what the problem is with their franchise? The Islanders are a great example of this, tearing through coaches, but never establishing if coaching is the issue or if it’s the on-ice personnel (to be fair,the larger Islander issue is management, but even poor management creates on-ice issues that could complicate how to most effectively evaluate players).

I’m not sure Payne needed to be fired, but I respect that Armstrong was thinking long-term with the move. It was decisive, which is always a great quality to see in a GM.

Hopefully, Armstrong will get to stick around after the Blues are sold.Brett Hull is supposedly looking to join the investment group looking to buy the Bluesand Hull is also supposedly looking for a role in the organization.

His time as co-GM in Dallas was an Islander-esque train wreck, so Blues fans have to be positively horrified at the damage he might cause in St. Louis. For instance, Sean Avery’s contract ends at the end of this season.

I’d love to see how Hitchcock might kick those tires.