Loose Pucks: The Great Gomez

January 27, 2013

Every NHL team begins the regular season in pursuit of the same elusive (and for some, highly improbable) goal: winning the Stanley Cup.  This season, the always ambitious San Jose Sharks have undertaken what may be an even more daunting challenge: resuscitating the career of Scott Gomez.

Gomez’s last two seasons as a Montreal Canadien were, as the Anchorage Daily News diplomatically puts it, “unproductive”: 9 goals in 118 games, including an infamous 368-day drought¹ between goals.  Despite general manager Marc Bergevin’s previous statement to the contrary — “I’m not buying him out,” Bergevin told LNH.com last July — Montreal placed Gomez on waivers and bought out his contract on January 17.  How much is it worth to Montreal to be rid of Scott Gomez?  The Canadiens will pay $9.2 million to Gomez over the next three years to not have his services.

Gomez’s career hit its lowest point (he hopes) on November 7, 2012, during the NHL lockout, when he signed a contract with the Alaska Aces of the ECHL.  The ECHL is a “developmental league for the American Hockey and the National Hockey League” — in other words, two tiers below the NHL, sort of like Double-A baseball.  Double-A is where Michael Jordan played baseball, and he was coming from a sport where the ball is a totally different size and color.  Scott Gomez went to the second-tier minors in his own sport, where pucks come in only one size and color.

Here are some of the most frequently asked questions on the ECHL website:

• What do the letters ECHL stand for?  (Answer: East Coast Hockey League.)
• What is the minimum salary for an ECHL player?  (Answer: $425 per week.)
• How can I try out for an ECHL team?  (Answer: After “selecting a team logo on the top of the site,” simply “contact the general manager or coach.”)

The Alaska Aces commended Gomez as “the most decorated hockey player from Alaska”; the Anchorage Daily News echoes that he’s “the most accomplished hockey player from Alaska.”  He may even be able to see the KHL from his parents’ house in Anchorage.  In happier times, Gomez brought the Stanley Cup to his hometown of Anchorage and went to Hollywood for a cameo role in the daytime soap opera One Life to Live.

But by now, like the down-on-his-luck Gonzo the Great in Disney’s 2011 movie The Muppets, Gomez must know that his “career is down the drain.”

Perhaps he can find inspiration in Gonzo, who after a stint in the plumbing business managed to revive his trademark “stage act, which includes shooting himself from a cannon, balancing a piano on his nose, or eating radial tires to classical music.”  Compared to those tricks, putting a puck in a net should be easy.

Alaska’s best and the Muppets’ … whatever

Scott Gomez hopes so.  Now that the Sharks have taken him on, he’s eager to prove himself.  “It just feels like ages since I’ve played in an NHL game,” he told the Daily News, adding helpfully, “I know I can play.”

Gomez isn’t satisfied merely to play again in the NHL, though; he wants to go all the way.  “I’m addicted to winning,” he told The (Montreal) Gazette on the day he signed with the Sharks.  (One can only wonder how he’s survived the withdrawal.)  “You play to have a shot at a Stanley Cup, especially if you’ve won one. I’m not ready to give that up.”

The revitalized Gomez apparently believes his new team can help him get his Stanley Cup fix.  Others agree that the new contract amounts to a rescue.  Perhaps inspired by San Jose’s marine mascot, several observers have employed a nautical metaphor to describe the Gomez signing.  From The Vancouver Sun: “the Sharks have thrown him a lifeline.”  From CBC Sports: “Scott Gomez resurfaces with Sharks.”  And the headline in The Gazette: “Gomez grasping at Sharks lifeline.”

But are the Sharks really the right team to rescue Scott Gomez from drowning in hockey ineptitude?  The Sharks themselves have been lost at sea for years, and every time they saw land on the horizon it turned out to be a mirage: regular-season wins masquerading as signs of imminent playoff success.  San Jose has earned a top-four seed in the playoffs every year since the 2006-2007 season, with a combined 295-141-56 regular-season record and a 0.600 winning percentage.  According to the analysts at NHL.com, “It’s not often a conversation about the top teams in the Western Conference each season doesn’t include the San Jose Sharks,” and they have been “a serious Stanley Cup contender” ever since acquiring Joe Thornton in 2005.

Yet year after year the Sharks have failed to contend for the Cup in the Finals.  Twice they reached the conference finals, but they won only one game in the two series combined; in 2010 they were swept by the eventual Stanley Cup champions, the Blackhawks, and in 2011 they managed only one win against their fellow Western Conference chokers, Roberto Luongo’s Canucks.  In three of the remaining four seasons in which the Sharks entered the playoffs as a top seed, they exited in first-round defeats to their lower-seeded opponents.  Since 2007, the Sharks have lost 34 of 61 postseason games for a 0.443 win percentage.

This is the team you want towing you to shore?

For Scott Gomez, it is.  He made his Shark Tank debut yesterday in a shutout victory over the Colorado Avalanche.  In case you’re wondering, no, he did not score a goal.

Speaks for itself: from the wonderful folks at DidGomezScore.com

Gomez replaced fellow center James Sheppard on the fourth line — small skates to fill for a former top-six forward and two-time All-Star.  Sheppard, drafted 9th overall by Minnesota in 2006, totaled 53 points in his first two seasons with the Wild but scored only 6 points in 64 games in 2009-2010.  He spent last season in the AHL; in his two games with the Sharks this season, Shepard racked up a total of 14:47 on the ice with 2 shots and 2 minutes in penalties.

Gomez was able to top Sheppard’s numbers with 15:03 of ice time and 3 shots on goal in his first game for San Jose, but he also muffed a golden opportunity to score late in the third period when, as the San Jose Mercury News described it, he got “a look into a wide-open net, only to lose control of the puck.”  Maybe the pucks in Double-A are less slippery or not as round.

If Gomez was drowning when San Jose dragged him aboard, the Sharks themselves were treading water at best.  Now the player best known for scoring futility and the team best known for playoff disappointment will try to carry each other to the misty, far-off land of champions.

¹ Calculation based on goals scored on February 5, 2011, and February 9, 2012, not including the dates each goal was scored.