The Officially Unofficial NHL Thread

Caligula_K

The right decision and also a hilarious one. I hope he goes to LA now.

DevotedWalnut

Tomas Kaberle says he will not re-sign with the Leafs as long as Ron Wilson remains employed by the club. He also said that he fully expects to be traded sometime this season.

Metastable_To_Chaos

Source?

DevotedWalnut

tsn?

edit: <a class="postlink" href="http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=331099">http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=331099</a>

DevotedWalnut

supposedly, Kovalchuk is suppose to sign with the Devils this week. supposedly...

DevotedWalnut

Sharks signed Antti Niemi this morning.

North_From_Here

DevotedWalnut wrote
Sharks signed Antti Niemi this morning.

:rolleyes:

Great. So much for Niittymaki finally getting his real shot at being the #1.

DevotedWalnut

what about poor ol Greiss?

Thrashtildeth

Leafs gonna suck less this year?

DevotedWalnut

I predict that they will not finish 29th this year.

on paper they are vastly improved, on paper that is

Thrashtildeth

48 plays for Xentrix, nice.

Love those guys.

DevotedWalnut

so like, training camp and pre-season are right around the corner. traffic better pick up here.

obviously some big off-season changes this summer.

like big Buff (Dustin Byfuglien) in Atlanta now.

Niemi with the Sharks, as well as Niitymaki. and Nabokov leaving for the KHL.

Kovalchuk finally re-signing with the Devils. funny story, his cap hit will be 6.66 a season.

Ray Whitney and Poni boy (Alexie Ponikarovsky) both signing in LA.

Leafs signing Colby Armstrong, Brett Lebda and trading for Kris Versteeg. as well as Phanuef becoming the new captain.

a full season out of Taylor Hall and probably Tyler Seguin.

speaking of Boston, Nathan Horton. how will he do?

how terrible will the Panthers be? Vokoun can only do so much.

Minnesota signing veteran John Madden and re-signing Miko Koivu long term.

Scott Niedermayer retiring and Teemu Selanne not retiring.

the Flyers picking up Meszaros and Walker(?) adding to their D all the while trading away oft-injured Simon Gagne.

the Devils signing hard hitting Anton Volchenkov.

the Pens signing Paul Martin and Zbynek Michalek. makes their D much better. also signed Mike Comrie for league minimum.

how different Chicago will be this year. can they threaten to repeat?

Ottawa signing veteran offensive d-man Sergei Gonchar. is not quite the replacement for Volchenkov, but it does make their pp and transition game much better. still weaksauce in goal though.

the Devils finally have a real back-up goalie in Johan Hedberg. if only they utilize him properly, they may actually do something in the playoffs.

lol at Calgary

will DiPietro finally stay healthy?

will Miller become human? or will he stay godlike for the Sabres?

will Turco go back to the goalie he once was?

will Foppa (Forsberg) finally retire?

anything else I missed?

...

FUCK

hockey is so close, I am too happy.

North_From_Here

DevotedWalnut wrote
what about poor ol Greiss?

I don't think Greiss is bad either. Makes the move seem even less sensible.

noodles

Too busy watching US Open.

Tompa

HOCKEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY

I'm dying for the season to start. Usually now is the time I still some of that hunger with the new NHL game but my Xbox broke and I can't justify bying another one just for NHL 11.

Kings added Ponikarovsky and Willie Mitchell (not Ray Whitney). Poni is at best a lateral move from Frolov but Mitchell is a significant upgrade from Randy Jones (duh). His health is a big issue though. With Bernier most likely being the backup this season I think the Kings will be improved in both goal and on defense. The big issue is 5 on 5 scoring and nothing has been done to improve that so any improvement will have to come from within. Considering how young most of the Kings core players are it's definitely possible, though it's not exactly ideal to base your success on "hope".

Other thoughts:

Halak on the Blues is scary. I pray that his recent playoff run was just an incredible hot streak because if it wasn't the Blues will be tough to beat.

Though the cap hit is nice, paying Kovalchuk ~$11M in actual money 6 years in a row is beyond dumb.

Vancouver is so stacked it's stupid. If the Sedins can maintain their production (doubt it though) nothing short of a planecrash will stop that team.

I have no idea what to expect from the Hawks, they kept the core of their team, and that core is sooooo good, but they'll be padding every other position with rookies and fringe players.

Predictions:

The Avs and Craig Anderson will come back to Earth and be a bottom-5 team in the west as they should be.

The Stars will continue to suck under Marc Crawford who will be fired at some point during the season.

Despite an aura of positivity brought in by Yzerman and some of the best forwards in the league, Tampa Bay continues to defy logic and suck balls.

Phoenix can't repeat their cinderella season and misses the playoffs.

They are old and should be worse but won't be. Wings bulldoze their way to the conference finals.

The stars align and the Flames re-establish themselves as one of the top teams in the west.

DevotedWalnut

it will take more than stars aligning for the Flames to make the playoffs.

bringing back Jokinen and Tanguay? if Darryl Sutter doesn't get fired this year then Calgary has no hope.

Tompa

DevotedWalnut wrote
it will take more than stars aligning for the Flames to make the playoffs.bringing back Jokinen and Tanguay? if Darryl Sutter doesn't get fired this year then Calgary has no hope.

Well it's definitely the boldest of my predictions but I think people underestimate them because they made some peculiar moves this summer. Even though the Jokinen and Tanguay acquisitions were hilarious in context, they still have the potential for bounce-back seasons. Calgary is a team with one of the best goalies in the league and a very solid group of defensemen. Tanguay and Iginla have proven chemistry together and if Jokinen can get his head out of his ass he can be a good 2nd line center. I expect Bouwmeester to be better as well.

DevotedWalnut

for the sake of Flamers everywhere, I hope you are right. but first, let the leafs do one more trade with them. we will take Iginla and Backlund for Finger, Grabovski, and prospect Stefanovic. should be fair.

DevotedWalnut

so the rookie tournament is over. training camps open up this weekend and the pre-season starts next week, on wednesday I believe.

fucking hockey!

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