Sunday, August 07, 2005
ICEE
Yeah, it's fair to say I'm juiced up.
Over the last week, the NHL has pretty much lost its mind, whereas the Canucks have kept their core intact, but lost two of their defensemen from the last season.
The rundown, followed by my rudimentary notes...
Staying
Markus Naslund -- 3-year contract, $18M
Brendan Morrison -- 3-year contract, financial terms undisclosed
Going
Brent Sopel -- traded to Islanders for conditional 2006 draft pick (2nd or 3rd round)
Marek Malik -- signed with Rangers, 3 years and $7.5M
Brad May -- signed with Avalanche, 2 years, financial terms undisclosed
Johan Hedberg -- signed with Dallas
Martin Rucinsky -- signed with Rangers
I'm a little wary about losing two relevant defensemen, and Scott Niedermayer's off the market. Apparently the Canucks are looking to trade for another defenseman and bring up a Tomas Mojzis or a Kevin Bieksa from Manitoba.
The Brad May signing is just weird on so many levels. Sure, Colorado doesn't have Steve Moore on the payroll anymore, but May was one of the guys that Moore named in his lawsuit. May was attributed to saying there was a bounty on Moore after the latter had given Markus Naslund the concussion. Now Colorado has the guy who was hated less than only Todd Bertuzzi in Denver.
Martin Rucinsky, as much as goal-scoring his forte, and as good as I thought he looked on the Czech World Cup team last fall, couldn't buy a goal for the Canucks after they traded for him. It's too bad, really. They could have used the extra scoring down the stretch right before the winning streak to end the season.
Still, the Canucks have locked up Naslund/Morrison/Bertuzzi for the next two years (probably 1.75 depending on how long Bertuzzi is suspended to start this season), so they'll be together for another run. The good thing is that the same group of guys are together, though now with a package of rules that seemingly is better for their system. The bad thing is, the same group has been together and hasn't gotten far in the playoffs lately, has lost Game 7 on home ice the last two years they were on home ice, etc. Dan Cloutier will probably be in the fold too. He's gotten three straight seasons of 30-plus wins in the regular season. Of course, if he doesn't get injured in the Calgary series, this might all be moot.
But while the Canucks have mostly stayed put and kept the same guys, teams within the division have picked up the following...
Calgary -- Tony Amonte, Darren McCarty
Colorado -- Pierre Turgeon, Patrice Brisebois, Andrew Brunette
Edmonton -- Chris Pronger, Mike Peca
Minnesota -- Andrei Nazarov, Scott Ferguson, Kurtis Foster
Not to mention that other teams in the West have also picked up Nikolai Khabibulin and Jeremy Roenick, and who wants to face Nashville with Paul Kariya? Now the Seinfeld episode will ring true with hockey as well. You're rooting for laundry now.
Forgive me, I miss the hell out of hockey. Remember as you're reading any of these hockey posts that I'm the same guy who did DJ duty for a junior hockey team in Bremerton (the Puget Sound Tomahawks) last winter, and it was damn fun hockey to watch.
And before I go, give some hits to Phil, because he's got a good thing going over there, and he even reads our blog and stuff. He's good people. The more hockey blogs, the better.
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