NHL 2006/2007

i was finally warming up to a canucks team for the first time since the 1994 team that drove itself right into my then-11 y/o heart. they'd finally coalesced for the first time since the mike keenan FIASCO, and now it's all drifting. auld, jovanovski, bertuzzi(who is still a hero here), all gone. new coach! i don't even know who he is.

i don't know about dan cloutier. he's gonna be fighting it out with luongo, i guess. is he any good? i miss kirk maclean! greg adams! geoff courtnall! sergio momesso! oh man, jyrki lumme! he was great. thank god we still have trevor linden.

Also, the (unsubstantiated) rumor is that Pronger('s wife) demanded a trade because he knocked up some Edmonton journalist.

- Zednik to Washington for a 3rd round: I liked him, but his attitude sucks and he hasn't been the same since the Kyle McLaren hit (doesn't cut in anymore). He is really strong along the boards, but the puck kinda died with him more often than not. He'll put up some good numbers if he plays with Ovechkin, but he was done as a Hab.

- Mike Johnson from Phoenix for a 4th round: I hope he's not as soft as everyone says he is. Well, he shoots right, is a good passer (on a team full of wannabe scorers) and is solid two-way.

- Re-sign Aebischer. I like having two #1 goalies. Worked for Buffalo and Carolina (in the playoffs anyway).

- Signed Sergei Samsonov. I'm wary of small speedy forwards, as we seem to have a lot of them, but I remember hating playing against him when he was a Bruin and he was impressive during the Oilers Cup run. Him and Kovalev together should be beautiful (unless, of course, Mike Ribeiro centers that line).

Devils resigned their two key FA's Elias and Langenbrunner, I'm happy.

I really don't know how the Devils will keep the team intact given that they have very little cap room left and still have Gionta, Gomez and Martin left to sign as restricted free agents.

First off, I must say that I'm happy for both Smith and Nolan. The bottom line is they deserve to be in responsible positions in the National Hockey League.

But when you look at this, no owner should be hiring a new coach before he hires his general manager.

It creates a lot of potential problems down the road.

If, hypothetically speaking, Nolan doesn't like the player procurement made by Smith, he could easily go to talk to Wang about it rather than the GM.

That would simply be dysfunctional and unacceptable.

There has got to be a chain of command in every NHL franchise, and it looks like there is no chain of command in Long Island.

I see that Pat Lafontaine also resigned after the press conference.

So let's divvy up the likely blame between Ted Nolan, Charles Wang and Mike Milbury... maybe the blackballing of Nolan was justified after all.

YES PLS

Side note: My housemate got us FSD somehow, so I can actually watch games this year.

How does giving a hockey player a 15 year contract make sense to someone?

I wonder if contracts are going to become longer/shorter now with the salary cap.

WTF with LaBarbera put on waivers? I know the Kings have Cloutier-Garon, but the guy just came off a not-bad rookie season (.900, 2.89 GAA) and he's 26. Is he simply a victim of the numbers game?

Ribeiro for Niinimaa is great, just because Ribeiro could've singlehandedly sunk Kovalev and Samsonov. Time to give a guy like Plekanec a chance to shine.

The Western Conference looks fuckin' strong this year; don't know if any team from the East can match up.

didn't jersey do better in the regular season too?

brodeur should just move to edmonton so every single western canadian team can have a top flight goalie and still fail due to shit goalscoring. it can be their "thing" kind of like how eastern canada's "thing" is using more energy to hate other teams than support their own! huzzah!

There was nobody else more valuable to his team than Luongo. I like Crosby, but without him, the Pens are still a good young team with veteran leaders and good goaltending. Without Luongo, the Canucks would never have made the playoffs, and they certainly wouldn't have made it past Dallas in the first round.

i can't dispute luongo's value to vancouver, but without crosby, the penguins turn into the capitals. sergei gonchar is not a leader, and got a phenomenal proportion of his points on the (crosby) power play. gary roberts is awesome, but was only there the last six weeks of the season. mark recchi hit a wall on february 1, as did malkin. fleury is a great talent, but pretty inconsistent. the defense, apart from gonchar's offense and the young ryan whitney, is subpar. there are decent role players like colby armstrong, etc that can complement crosby but you sure as hell don't want to be relying on them.

I HATE Bettman and the other idiots who are doing their best to run the league into the ground.

No Team for You - NEXT!

balsillie should have been a little more circumspect about his plans to move, though

Kansas City and hockey ... that's like putting a team in Anaheim!

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/4/41/Kansas_city_scouts_logo.JPG

Balsille did rub the fact that he wanted to move the team as soon as possible in the league's face, but if the new guy is discussing a move to KC, then what's the problem really? Also, how can they be willing to accept $50 million less?! It's absurd. A team in Hamilton would be a huge success, and I'm saying that as a Leafs fan. It might actually be the kick in the ass those bums have been needing for decades now.

I know Bettman is behind this, but I wouldn't be surprised if Buffalo and Toronto are also somehow involved. Nothing like a good conspiracy theory.

briere to philly
gomez to the fucking rangers
yanic perreault to chicago until the leafs trade for him back
schneider to anaheim
rafalski to red wings
tom poti to washington

SAY IT AINT SO MATTHIEU

Rafalski is good but 6m is a lot.

buffalo so brokenhearted ;_;

they'd better sign drury!

chris drury to the FUCKING rangers!
jason blake to the leafs (overrated!)

suddenly the rangers are pretty damn good--just take the C away from jagr

BUFFALO DOESN'T KNOW WHETHER TO CRY OR WIND ITS WATCH

Dear Boston,

Didnt you finally find a goalie last seaon? Motherfucker with a Soderstrom mask, I think. Why u get Fernandez all time?

Also NYR,

I thought you proved you can buy a Stanly Cup only once (1) every 40 years. You have some time to go yet...

Also is 7 years for a #2 center a bit much?

This is going to go on all summer... there are no (0) goalies on the market worth taking a flyer on this year, so the Kings are as good as done already.

Also, it seems like the whole list of player profiles on ESPN suggest that EVERYONE is going to thee Leafses. of course this was written before NYR decided to offer money and blowjobs and esoteric feudal titles to get players.

yeah, the gomez is a bit much, but i love the drury signing. if i'm a ranger fan. WHICH I AM NOT.

don't fret jmod you have rob blake!

is rob blake suddenly going to strap on the pillows and block 90+% of the shots thrown on net?

eddie belfour is available!

and drunk!

eddie belfour is not a good solution to a problem that has existed since Kelly Hrudey (if you believe that Kelly Hrudey was ever a real #1)... Interestingly I was just thinking about Stephane Fiset today for some reason and shook my head sadly.

hmm. what if i gave you stéphane thibault for a songphotograph?

kelly hrudey wore a bandanna. and his name was kelly. i still feel bad for dougie gilmour for having lost to you.

or even jocelyn thibault?

And he played with a birdcage and short legs long before it became ironic to do so.

And his weirdly inefficient and stiff faceoff positioning

i think don cherry once did a coach's corner from LA whilst wearing a bandanna?

I don't love the Blake signing in Toronto. A 5 year deal at $20 million for a 33 year-old who's only topped 30 goals once in his career? JFJ still has yet to make a believer out of me.

The Rangers are making a statement, and I feel so incredibly bad for Buffalo. This past season was their last chance at the big one.

the lengths of these contracts are retarded

just wait til the islanders sign ryan smyth to a 25 year deal

Also is 7 years for a #2 center a bit much?

When you sign a second number 2 center for 5 years along with him? I'd say so.

wait are we calling michael nylander a #1 center?

he's more of a set up guy then Drury.

we're saying that the rangers have no #1 center, I think

for 10 million dollars in his first year gomez better be some sort of #1 center

then again, see also briere.

It didn't take long for the free agent market to become grossly disorted again did it? Gomez is going to make $10 million next year. I think he's a decent player, but he only scored 13 goals last year. Joe Sakic is making less than $6 million, and he scored a 100 points.

zednik - panthers
dvorak - panthers
ortmeyer - preds
ryan smyth - avalanche
kariya - blues
petr sykora - pens
sabourin - pens
sydor - pens

Again, what was wrong with Jason LaBarbera?

The Kings *have* to be a better team with Handzus, Preissing, Nagy and Calder, no?

Meanwhile, the whole Eastern Conference got better -- esp. in the goaltender department with Toskala, Fernandez and Vokoun moving on over, and without talking about some of the outrageous UFA signings -- while the Habs are more or less idle (I like the Hamrlik signing, Smolinski is a non-factor).

ducks sign Bertuzzi

OK I don't even really like the guy but srsly stop taking my team!

I like their signing of Preissing, he's a pretty solid top-4 or top-6 kind of guy, and Calder/Handzus are alright too, but Nagy is a gamble. I suppose their other moves are good enough that they can afford ot gamble, but yeah. I have a feeling Nagy could have a career year-- they just need to pair him right.

i wonder how rob lang will work out with havlat OH WAIT havlat will be injured for 6 months and OH WAIT lang's been too old for about... 2 years? 3? i forget.

You must be happy about having Hamrlik instead of Souray... that guy. Man. That plus-minus. Say all you want that p/m means nothing but when it's that low...

bertuzzi + pronger = most hated team?

kariya - blues ^_^

it's so true! the ducks are the new villains of hockey

ironic considering they are a franchise based on a movie full of a bunch of good-hearted kids battling villains of hockey. like iceland (?!?!?).

maybe they just wanted a real life portman and fulton for the ducks, like in the movies. Why do I remember them? BASH BROS!

Plus/Minus is a great indicator of a player's overall skill! It's not to be trivialized IMO.

I am dismayed that the Wings have let two strong forwards go in favor of keeping Hasek for one more year. They managed to hang on to Chelli, though, so that's good, but who's going to be up front?

Hey if you combine Dom and Chris' ages it's like 80.

and last i checked, you still have datsyuk and zetterberg! maybe you'll end up grabbing selanne or something. that'd be a fair trade for bertuzzi. forsberg still needs to end up somewhere as well. there are still some decent depth players kicking around too.

Souray has this Big Lug kind of leadership that I'll miss.

fedotenko to the isles, kostopoulos to the canadiens, blah blah blah... what is souray doing?

maybe he'll take a pay cut to stay in montreal or something. i don't know! he should be signed SOMEWHERE by now. maybe he's asking like WAY too much of every team that tries to sign him. what's mtl's cap like right now?

...aaaand he's gone to Edmonton. I suppose the Oilers will look at him as a savior, but without a god in net behind him, and no unbelievable forwards up front to make up for it, I think he's going to be more of a liability to that team than a boon.

This thread already passed its 1-year anniversary, so without further ado... Detroit Will Not Win The President's Trophy: The NHL Thread 2007/2008