The NHL Award show takes place on June 23rd in Las Vegas. Crosby, Ovechkin and Vancouver’s Henrik Sedin are the nominees for the Hart Trophy as the MVP.
The Draft takes place in Los Angeles, with the first round going Friday, June 25th and rounds 2-7 following on Saturday June 26th. This is the current draft order, barring any trades. By winning Game 7 against Pittsburgh, the Habs dropped all the way from 15th (the worst record amongst playoff teams losing in the first two rounds) to 27th (fewer points than San Jose, the other Conference Final loser.) Plymouth’s Tyler Seguin is the top rated North American skater according to NHL Central Scouting, but it’s still up in the air who the Oilers will choose.
Free agents hit the market starting July 1. The Sharks have nine UFAs, including Evgeni Nabokov and Patrick Marleau. Rob Blake has announced his retirement. The Habs don’t have many key UFAs to re-sign; Tomas Plekanec being probably the most notable. They do, however have many RFAs that need new contracts, particularly Max Lapierre, Tom Pyatt, and one of the goalies, likely Jaro Halak. Carey Price is presumably on the trading block, and hopefully if dealt, he will bring back a princely return.
Elsewhere, Dion Phaneuf is now the new captain of the Maple Leafs. Best of luck to the Toronto media trying to interview the guy; he has a prickly reputation with the press corps.
And Patrick Kane, Jonathan Toews, Brent Seabrook and Duncan Keith will be on Leno tonight. (Monday). Toews is the newest, and youngest, member of the Triple Gold Club, having won the World Championship in 2007 and the Olympics and Stanley Cup this year.
Well, that clears up the goaltending situation. All Price needs is a new contract.
Oddly enough, I posited the theory back earlier in the year that the Blues might be looking for a young goalie, as they were on their way to missing the playoffs with a couple of 30-plus goalies.
I knew it would never happen, but I wanted both goalies back next year.
Price has a shitload of talent and potential. I hope they got a shrink in the trade to help him out - if he can learn to focus and not get too riled up by mistakes, he could be amazing. But after 3 years…how much longer can the Habs try and develop him?
Good for Halak, though. A chance to really be #1, and in the West so we don’t have to watch him destroy us several times a year!
I still think they should have given Price a full year in Hamilton in 07-08, just so he could learn how to be a professional far away from the prying eyes of the Montreal fishbowl.
Maybe this will be good for him. Now he doesn’t have to constantly look over his shoulder, afraid that every bad goal or bad game is putting him one step closer to nailing his ass to the bench.
I don’t know much about Eller or Schultz, except that Eller was a first round pick in ‘07, and both of them have some size (6’ for Eller, 6’2 for Schultz, and both 200 lbs.)
Or if you mean this current sale brouhaha, since sometime late last season. Moyes tried to sell to Ballsilie, that went to court with a decision made sometime in the summer, then the NHL bought the team maybe in October or so, and then they tried to strongarm Rheinsdorf into buying a team he doesn’t want and everyone laughs at Ice Edge because of the Saskatchewan thing, and the fact that they don’t appear to actually have any money (though they recently provided proof of their financial situation), but the NHL will probably sell to them anyways and the team will lose another 30 million bucks or more and then will be sold to really, really rich guys in Canada and the team will go back to Winnipeg next year or the year after, where it should be.
Rumours abound that Spezza will be traded soon. Makes perfect sense to me. We’ve already done one franchise-killing trade with the Heatley deal, so why not compound the problem and trade our only star under the age of 35?
If Ottawa trades Spezza it will set the franchise back 10 years. That may sound overly pessimistic, but Brian Murray isn’t interested in picks or prospects so it will take 3-4 years for the franchise to hit rock bottom, and then there will be the long, arduous climb out of the basement.
I don’t know how I feel about that. I mean, I like Plekanec; he’s a good player, but our two top centers are Scott Gomez and Plekanec, and neither is more than 5’11 tall. We saw what happened in the Philly series, it wasn’t too good.
Lots of other news today, all via TSN. Scott Niedermayer is expected to announce his retirement today. The guy is a winner, pure and simple. Everything you can win in hockey from junior on up, he’s won it.
The Hall of Fame has a few new members, including their first two women. Dino Ciccarelli, Angela James, and Cammi Granato were inducted as players; with former Red Wing GM Jim Devellano and the former Flames co-owner, the late Daryl ‘Doc’ Seaman. First-time eligible nominees Eric Lindros and Joe Nieuwendyk missed the cut.
And Pat Quinn has stepped aside as Oiler coach to become an advisor. Tom Renney takes over. The TSN article is just a stub right now, though.
The Panthers have traded Nathan Horton and Greg Campbell to the Bruins for Dennis Wideman, the 15th overall pick and a 2011 3rd round pick.
This is a godawful trade for Florida. Wideman is at best a second pairing defenceman and the 15th overall pick isn’t likely to turn into a better player than Horton. I just don’t understand this trade at all. What is it about Peter Chiarelli that makes fellow GMs lose their minds when dealing with him? And why the hell did Ottawa let this guy go in favour of John freakin’ Muckler?
To give you a Blues fan’s perspective: I spent five minutes confirming this after my brother texted it to me, as I thought he was bullshitting. Once verified, I reacted like this.
Do you think that Wilson will use Nabokov’s money to go for a UFA goalie? Or do you think they’ll start next season with Greiss and someone from the minors? (that Patzold guy, do they still have him?)
Wilson said he expects good FA goalies to become available, and he wants to add a goalie from outside the Sharks to the roster, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be Greiss next season.
I’ve personally not seen much out of Greiss: he was the goalie in a game I went to that the Sharks lost in overtime. He might be OK, but I just don’t see him getting “hot” like other young goalies can.
Pat Quinn is out as the head coach of the Oilers. This was inevitable - they finished 33 points out of a playoff spot! It’s sad to see how far that once-great team has fallen.
Anyway, associate coach Tom Renny takes over, and Quinn is being bumped up to the head office.
All I can say is, the Oilers had better get a hell of a draft pick.
