Premature Post: Who Gets His Name on the Cup?

May 11, 2012
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Surly & Scribe ran a post the other day wondering if Terry Murray should/could get his name on the Cup, were the Kings to prevail this Spring. They noted that it is possible for the winning team to petition the league to have personnel added to the cup under special circumstances. I’m of at least two minds on this. On one hand, Terry Murray is a significant co-architect of the current Kings team, and is certainly deserving of part of the credit for whatever happens. On the other hand, I don’t see how firing Terry Murray qualifies as special circumstances that prevented him from participating. I’m not sure I think teams should even be allowed to petition the league to have names added. I (think I) think that dilutes the honor of getting your name on the cup in the first place. As much as Terry Murray deserves to be a part of whatever happens to the Kings this season, the fact is: he’s not. He got fired. If the Kings win the cup (if if if), everyone is going to feel bad for Terry Murray. But putting his name on the cup isn’t really going to make Terry Murray feel better. Maybe a little, but there would always be an asterisk attached to his inclusion. Anyway, it should be kind of, well, hard to get your name on the cup. You should actually have to be on the winning team or a coach (or appropriate member of management) of the winning team.

I was kind of surprised, now that I think of it, that Lombardi didn’t make Murray an assistant coach at the time of his firing. That would have solved this problem, wouldn’t it?

But that isn’t what I wanted to talk about

I wanted to talk about another issue relating to who gets his name on the cup and who doesn’t. In order for a player to get his name on the cup, the player must either (1) have played 41 games or more for the team in the regular season (and still be property of the team at the end of the season), or (2) have played at least one game in the Stanley Cup Finals. 

Players who did not play the minimum:

Barring inj****s, King, Nolan and Carter would obviously qualify by playing in the finals. Hunter and Moreau aren’t coming back. Barring some kind of miracle, Gagne won’t return. Parse could conceivably finish his (now traditional) spring training/comeback in time to get into a game. And that leaves Loktionov, Westgarth and Drewiske. Any of those guys could see some finals action (if if if if if). It would be sad if any of those three guys ended up playing on a cup-winning team but didn’t get their names on the cup. It would be especially cruel in Loktionov’s case, being two games shy of the required number of regular season games.

Obviously, we should all be so lucky, to have these problems.

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This entry was posted on May 11, 2012 at 11:05 AM and is filed under Latest. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

  • https://twitter.com/jsalsLA jsalsLA

    i was actually wondering about Gagne’s part in all this the other day – so thanks for the info.

    and i agree with you – feels lame that westy, drewy and loki would get the shaft.

  • DougS

    As to your main point, I agree that it would/will suck for the players that you mention — especially Drewiske and Westgarth, who are increasingly obscure and probably don’t have much future with the organization despite having been part of the rebuild. I have faith that Lokti will get another chance. :-)

    As to your point about demoting Terry Murray rather than firing him outright, I agree that that would have been ideal in a lot of ways. Anyone with a degree of intelligence, who has watched this team closely over the last several years, would acknowledge your point about him being “co-architect” of this current team. He’s probably an ideal assistant — like I said at the time, he’s the badger in the old proverb about how the fox knows many things, but the badger knows one thing very well. 

    But realistically, when has something like that ever happened? I can’t recall an instance offhand, in any big league sport. Unfortunately, it’s a political issue — it gets caught up in people’s egos and group dynamics. In that sense, I think TM would have been in an untenable position. In the back of everyone’s mind,  he would have been ‘the Head Coach who kind of got fired.’ He might even have replaced Kompon as the lightning rod for irrational criticism.

  • Garrett79

    I’m pretty sure that Gagne’s inclusion would not be an issue. The only reason he didn’t play 41 games was injury, and that is one of the extenuating circumstances the NHL allows for when determining whose names get on the Cup. Same probably goes for Scott Parse. Even if someone on the roster playing now didn’t make it into 41 games in the regular season got hurt, their name would be on the Cup for the same reason (if the Kings were to win).

    Last year, Marc Savard played only 25 regular season games and none in the playoffs, but his name is on the Cup.

    As for Loktionov, I’m not so sure. I think he’d have to play in the Final at this point.

  • WantedPlayerX

    Player-X here, under this name in Disqus. Congratulations on the new site. Nice layout, fun fonts, too.

    In the comments to the article on Surly and Scribe (which I authored) there was mention that Terry Murray did scouting for the organization this season subsequent to his being fired as head coach. Not that I doubt the veracity of the commenter, but the comment is “unconfirmed” in a way. I thought for sure you would either know or be able to find out if it was true.

    If it were true, would that fact rate as enough to qualify for the exemption, in your opinion? I mean, it’s not a lateral position relative to head or assistant cach, but it does maintain his employment beyond just paying him the remaining salary.

    Also, did you think he should get a ring, if not his name on the cup? Where did your feeling end, and would Murray doing some scouting change whatever position you ended with?

    • http://www.mcsorleys-stick.com/ Quisp

      Thanks for the kind words and I’m especially glad to hear you like the font, which is an acquired taste for most people.

      That’s interesting about murray possibly scouting. It wouldn’t surprise me. I don’t really have any way to confirm it one way or another. Yeah, I don’t really have a problem with Murray getting his name on the cup as an asst. coach or a scout. I don’t even really totally agree with myself in the above post. Like I said, I’m of many minds.

      It’s entirely possible Murray has coached his last game in the NHL. He’s not a spring chicken anymore, to use an expression that only people who aren’t spring chickens use. The only thing that mitigates the sympathy I have for TM in this situation is that I’m fairly certain we would not be in our current position if he were still the coach.

      I’m fine with him getting a ring, and, like I said, I’m fine with him getting his name on. And, yeah, knowing that he has (possibly) continued to work for the Kings after being dismissed does make it “more okay” in my eyes.

      Also, thanks for visiting the site!