05/07 Hockey Notes

Well, so far no huge surprises in the playoff race. The Ducks and The Sabers both won their series. The surprise for me is Detroit. I expected them to wash out of the first round…again. I expect the Ducks to soundly beat whoever wins that series, though. Buffalo and Ottawa, though…that’s a tough call. To hear John Muckler talk about it, the Senators have struggled and overcome to go all the way. Personally, I’m still expecting Buffalo and Anaheim to play for it all, and Buffalo to hoist the Cup in the end. We’ll see.

Of course, come next season, we will all get to see if Lou Lamoriello stays off the bench. Can he really do it this time? After all, he’s made the announcement a few times about giving up coaching. It all comes down to finding a better coach this time than he has the last 14 times.

And, it seems the Russians are at it again.

The NHL and International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) agreed in principle to a new transfer agreement on Saturday before a hesitant Russia again prevented a quick ratification.

The new deal would run for four years, instead of two, and bring some $12 million to the IIHF. But, the Russians are apparently wanting more. Of course, they are probably still stinging from their legal losses in all the cases they tried to sue over last year. I hope they have sense enough to be reasonable this time around.

Speaking of deals, the Edmonton Oilers owners group were offered $145 million for the team, and turned it down. With the team currently valued at $96 mill, that was a hell of a deal. I don’t know if I could turn down almost 150% of value on any deal.
(…we’ll see how good a choice this was in the next couple of seasons, I guess…)

So, what about al those free agents? What are they going to do next season? Well, in Dallas, it seems they want to stay. that says a lot about how the team feels about each other. I think we’ll start seeing a lot more longevity throughout the league, since payroll is going to pretty static under the CBA. Most trades will have more to do with fitting the right person in the right slot, than about buying playoff runs (…that don’t usually work out anyway…). You might want to go check out the Trade Rumors over at Spector