2009-10 NHL Thread

If Brampton isn't a contender would they not want to trade him? How does Brampton look?

Hodgson back can't be right yet because he looked awful a training camp. He could not keep up in preseason games.

 

Are they a contender? For making the playoffs, maybe.

I mean, Grachev & Duchene are gone so even with Cody bacl, they still have to make up a helluva lot of points.

I have no idea if Stan would consider trading Hodgson. It'd be weird if he did.

And besides, there's still an off-chance (though a long shot) that Duchene may be sent back.

Brampton's biggest problems so far this year seem to be scoring goals and attendance.

 

Actually no I don't. I just wanted him to get a fair shot at a camp, and he wasn't going to get one with Mac-T, regardless of how he played. So he got his blank slate and did little if anything with it. He's an offense only player and I don't think collected a single point in the pre-season against mostly AHL players. He was passed in the pecking order by guys like Brule and J.F. Jacques. And with Eberle on the way next year, there was no room for him. He ran his course, it was time for him to go. I'm thinking M.A. Pouliot is the next to get put on waivers in an attempt to send him down once he comes off the IR.

Quinn has really shuffled the deck with the line up. Today it looked like this

Jacques - Horcoff - Hemsky
O'Sullivan - Comrie - Ryan Stone
Penner - Brule - Cogliano
Moreau - Gagner - The great Stortilini

That's right, Gagner on the fourth line (some pundits thought he'd jump to the top unit and at the very least stay on the second line) , but with the chemistry that Comrie and O'Sullivan developed in camp there was nowhere for him in the top six, and Horc at a $5.5 mil cap hit ($7 mil this year) is a waste on the third or fourth line. I think developmentally this could be good for Gagner as it will take a lot of pressure off of him, and he can learn a lot from playing with a guy like Moreau. He's still got to see time on one of the PP units.

 

Robert Lang will be playing in Phoenix this year on a one-year deal, but isn't everyone?

 

I like the move. He's comes cheap and adds some leadership for young group without hurting them cap-wise long term. He was arguably the Habs best forward last year before getting hurt.

 

According to a wire story, the CBC has added to their mediocre goalie brigade, signing Kevin Weekes to of course do colour - not sure goalies can do anything but.
Their analysts now/have include Kelly Hrudey, Greg Millen, Glenn Healy, and Weekes.
What's Mike Vernon and Trevor Kidd up to these days? I'm sure Peter Sidorkiewicz is still available too. Tell me EF, you didn't happen to play goal at all growing up, did you?

 

Beef, disagree with you on the goalie stuff.

Hrudey's one of the best analysts on HNIC, Healy adds much needed sandpaper, Millen is unfortunately mostly vanilla and from what little I heard of Weekes last Saturday, he has some promise, although he did say something like "He could have went".

I'd rather listen to almost any of those guys than Mike Milbury. And unlike TSN, they don't bring in guys like Roenick who was an absolute disaster.

 

It wasn't a comment on their on air ability, but a comment on their previous career. All mediocre goalies -- although some may argue Hrudey was a bit better than mediocre. It seems like if you were a mediocre goalie in the NHL that CBC will be waiting to sign you once you retire. I'm sure Lalime will be there one day too.
They also all seem to be brought in only as colour analysts as well, very rarely do you see a goalie as the play by play guy. I don't like Millen. Healy has his good days and bad. Hrudey has improved drastically since he first started and now is quite good at what he does.

 

Beef, bringing in goalies as colour guys isn't a recent invention. It's a cliche but they're good commentators for the same reason catchers are good doing baseball--they see the whole game unfold in front of them. And if they're mediocre goalies, it probably means they're watching a lot of games from the bench. And doing pbp is an entirely different skill set. One has nothing to do with the other.

But then again, John Davidson was a colour guy for years and he was hardly a mediocre goalie.

Their skill as commentators has more to do with the position they played than whether they won a Vezina or not.

And Millen isn't a mediocre colour guy because he was a mediocre goalie--he's just boring as
batshit.

Oh, and Mats Sundin officially retired.

 

A little more than a day before the puck drops ... wooooooooooooooooo.

 

Cam Ward signs six year extension.

 

Be interesting to see where he fits into Team Canada in Vancouver.