June 28th, 2012 — Uncategorized
Two of the NHL’s best known goalies signed new deals today. Jonathan Quick of the Los Angeles Kings. and Tuukka Rask of Boston Bruins.
The reigning Stanley Cup and Conn-Smyth winner arguably took a home town discount. His deal is reported right at $58 million for ten years. The deal will put his cap hit as the seventh highest for goaltenders in the NHL. Ahead of him from top to bottom are Rinne, Lundqvist, Ward, Miller, Backstrom, and Kiprusoff. Of all these men only Rinne has appeared in the top 7 in sv% for each of the last two seasons.
Tuukka Rask’s deal is a curious one. One year at $3.5million. Under the current CBA that would leave him an RFA after next season. With the pending boardroom show down between the NHLPA and the NHL owners the landscape just over the event horizon could be completely different. Rask has spent his NHL career sharing the crease with Tim Thomas. This year he is in many eyes the rightful heir. With the limited to non-existent NHL experience of those behind him like Khudobin, Hutchinson, and Svedberg. With the number and quality of goaltenders in the system Rask should not be resting easy.
June 28th, 2012 — Uncategorized
While I’m not going to predict any career trajectories based off of a bit more than an hours on ice observation. Some players did stand out for one reason or another. Here’s the quick hits.
- Ryan Spooner, has filled out and looks stronger and larger but hasn’t lost even a hint of speed or agility. When I spoke to him after practice he was extremely focused on playing in the NHL this fall.
- Colton Hargrove who is headed to Western Michigan showed off some high end hand eye coordination. He’s a big, solid guy who grew up a Mike Modano fan in his native Texas. Said he sees similarities in his game to Milan Lucic.
- Adam Morrison is more concerned with focusing on refining his game this year than where he plays. He said he was in Boston during the spring for the playoffs but slightly surprised by the atmosphere at development camp.
- Malcolm Subban drew a lot of attention and is a more active goaltender than many, the OHL stud goaltender and first round pick is wearing his Bellville Bulls pads.
- Hamilton has put on some muscle, his wrist shot looked smooth and quick.
When Don Sweeney spoke after practice he mentioned that while no one will make the team out of development camp they expect some of these campers to come in and push for a job. The chance to push aside a veteran does exist. From his comments other, I would guess there are three forwards and one defenseman at camp who can be expected to supply the most pressure. I think any of the veterans who show up this fall out of shape or try and sleep walk through camp might find themselves in a different uniform before the season starts.
There are some differences this camp to previous ones. First off six goaltenders makes for not a great deal of crease time. The total roster on the other hand is smaller than in past years. Part of this reflects the depth of the Boston team and the fairly young players already on it. Another part may well be the pending lockout. A player in the locker room did mention the pending labor dispute and that it might affect the season. With the turnover in some other NHL teams management offices I can imagine young players going to where they expect a better change to play in the NHL next season, whenever it may be, than to a deep perennial playoff team.
June 28th, 2012 — Collective Bargaining Agreement
One of the things that I hope both sides of the NHL/NHLPA showdown over how the next decades money will be split is that the current discipline system is utterly inadequate. As mentioned previously diving is an issue that needs to be shot dead. With fines that might as well not exist despite their being cheating as unfair as performance enhancing drugs (and far more common) nothing has been done to curb it.
But the diving is just one small part. There needs to be power for oversight of officiating given to the NHLPA. Some officials clearly are incompetent to hand towels to the officials who do take the ice. Some mechanism for forceful correction of the egregiously bad officiating needs to come into being, immediately. It could even be a joint General Mangers/Governors NHLPA work group to address the worst of the mess.
The third level is bringing in a person or persons to be the basis for appeals. Currently the disciplinarian is installed by Gary Bettman, who also get’s to in his own sweet time decide on appeals. As we’ve seen with the Raffi Torres debacle, without a strict deadline Bettman is able to effectively pocket veto any suspensions he doesn’t wish to address. Him doing so is unfair to the team owners, the players and the fans. Is Raffi Torres going to be the reason a team wins or loses a playoff series? Unlikely, but what if the next person appealing is Alex Ovechkin who is now a “repeat offender” if Bettman answers in any less time than elapsed in the Torres case he’ll clearly be showing favoritism. He’s doubly undermined the system and it makes the NHL look bad.
There are other problems that need to be dealt with sure, but these issues can affect teams bottom line by millions of dollars a year and should not be ignored.
June 28th, 2012 — Uncategorized
The boys are on the ice Krug, Hargrove, Spooner, Khoklachev, Subban and more.
Updates as possible.
June 28th, 2012 — Uncategorized
Former St Louis Blue, Boston Bruin, Florida Panther, and Washington Capital Dennis Wideman is now and likely for the next five years a member of the Calgary Flames. On Wednesday he signed a five year deal contract worth $26.25million. Jay Feaster clearly felt that a mediocre skater who has never been on a team that made it past the second round, has been jettisoned by four teams, is a career -39, and who boasts just one goal in 44 playoff appearances is worth five and a quarter million in cap space each year. My opinion is that Seth Jones should get familiar with the Calgary real estate market.
Mathieu Darche has rejected a Habs offer of a a two way contract. The well traveled thirty six year old is also a member of the NHLPA negotiating team. The three time 30 goal scorer at the AHL level has never hit even 15 in the NHL topping out at twelve. Presumably he’ll be looking for a deal roughly equal to his most recent and potentially even a two year deal. No word on if he’ll attempt to sign in Boston as several past recovering Candiens have.
Boston Bruins development camp is starting on Thurday, prospects have been trickling including 6’2 Florida born forward Brian Ferlin:
Ferlin was taken in the fourth round in 2011 and attends Cornell University. The Indiana Ice alumni will find himself sharing a locker room with former and current Boston College Eagles, OHL champions, Texan Colton Hargrove, Brit Cody Payne and the rest of the hopefuls.
