All-purpose hockey thread...

Re: New NHL vs. the old NHL

With the goalie equipment crackdown, did anybody think Giguere would be ever be the goalie he was three years ago?

 

Re: New NHL vs. the old NHL

Sirs, Madames,

It does seem like just the other day that I was covering E Staal with the Pboro-Petes. I think it's premature to send him to the Olympics. He hasn't played in a NHL playoff game yets.

Re Crosby: Different story. World jrs and Mem Cup. Dominant in latter, big influence on the former.

I saw Staal at the spring u-18s a couple (few?) years back and he was good on a shit team. Crosby, a year younger, at summer u-18s was head and shoulders the best player in the tournament (best of a bad Canadian lot who are going to u-20s this year.

Crosby goes before Staal. I can use the sales.

YHS, etc

 

Re: New NHL vs. the old NHL

did any teammate ever like Barrasso? Juneau also is a real good guy.

 

Re: New NHL vs. the old NHL

Probably not. Haven't looked at his numbers though.

 

Re: New NHL vs. the old NHL

It wouldn't break my heart to see a French-Canadian line of St. Louis-Lecaviler-Bergeron.

 

Re: New NHL vs. the old NHL

Mr. Miler
You have until Dec 24 to pray for sales.

After that the royalties will buy you souvlakis for a month.

 

Re: New NHL vs. the old NHL

They aren't horrible:
8-5-4 record 2.65 GAA .908 save percentage.

 

Re: New NHL vs. the old NHL

Not bad. I suspect that there's a defiency in his game that us plebes don't know about.

 

Re: New NHL vs. the old NHL

Mr Jericho,

Juneau was in fact a great guy to geal with but not much of a food critic. After an exquisite meal, I asked him the next day for his review of our fine dining: "Serious f-ing garlic breath," he opined.

Mr R,

Your support in book matters is greatly appreciated. I'll refer you to the next edition of Q and Q for announcements of my just signed tome as well as Mrs Miler's (remarkable) 135G advance (US and Canadian total) for a meat book. The earnings of Sidney's book will be play money.

To all,

I'd make the case for Spezza over Staal all day long.

A small digression: Who represents Staal anyway? I hate to see conspiracies in all this but I am intrigued by the agent-player connections in roster composition. I'd like to think 99 is above all that. But if it came down to everything being equal, I wonder if he'd snub an IMG guy in favour of say Newport or Orr players. (I believe that agentry had lots to do with roster for 96 World Cup for instance; Slats opening spots for Newport and IMG guys). I think this augurs well for 87.

YHS, etc

 

Re: New NHL vs. the old NHL

very interesting that spezza returned tonight against dallas. he could have waited until the toronto game on saturday, but i think he desperately wants to make some an impression on the selection committee.

didnt work. stars won 2-0.

 

Re: New NHL vs. the old NHL

From today's (NY) Times:

Niedermayers Are Now One Big Happy Family
By JASON DIAMOS
Published: December 15, 2005

When Scott Niedermayer left the Devils as a free agent last summer to sign with Anaheim, the No. 1 reason he cited was the chance to play with his younger brother, Rob, for the first time since they were teenagers.

But as much as Scott, who is 32, and Rob, who turns 31 on Dec. 28, are relishing the experience, they realize who cherishes it most: their mother, Carol.

"It's nice that she can come down and see both of us in the same city," Rob Niedermayer said with a chuckle after a recent game. "And she doesn't have to choose sides anymore. I think she's really enjoying that."

Carol Niedermayer did not enjoy all the attention she received during the 2003 Stanley Cup finals, in which the Devils faced the Mighty Ducks, after she revealed that she was rooting for Rob to win his first championship. Much to her chagrin, Scott won his third Cup with the Devils, who defeated the Ducks in seven games.

And now?

"I'm ecstatic, really, because they played together as youngsters every second year," Carol Niedermayer said in a telephone interview from her home in Cranbrook, British Columbia.

The only other time her sons played on the same team since was for Canada at the world championship in 2004.

"And I think that little taste in Prague really whetted their appetites," she said.

As for her sons being N.H.L. teammates, she said, "I thought about it in my mind, but I never thought that it would actually come true."

Her dream was realized because Anaheim General Manager Brian Burke offered Rob Niedermayer a contract extension before he could become an unrestricted free agent after this season.

Scott Niedermayer, the Norris Trophy holder as the league's premier defenseman, said in August that Lou Lamoriello, the Devils' president, had offered him more money, for as many years as he would want. But with the lure of playing with his brother, he left the Devils after 12 seasons for a four-year, $27 million deal with Anaheim.

Scott Niedermayer said his in-laws own a house in nearby Palm Springs, Calif., where the family could gather for the holidays for the first time in years. Carol Niedermayer is planning to visit for Christmas.

"She's pretty excited to have everybody excited for us that we get this chance," Scott said. "But it's different. I was in New Jersey for a long time. It was great there.

"This is just something new for us, for everybody: for me on the ice; where we're living, just a lot of new things to deal with. So it's been good. It's not going to be easy. It's not necessarily going to be better. It's just different. And it's something that we wanted to try."

The experiment has been a work in progress. After last night's 4-2 victory over Tampa Bay, the Niedermayer brothers were first and tied for second in assists on the Ducks (Scott with 18 and Rob, a center, with 13) and in the top five in points on the team. But the Ducks were in fourth place in the five-team Pacific Division at 14-13-5.

As Carol Niedermayer said: "It's been an absolute blessing for them to be able to play together. Now, they just have to get going, I guess. But that will come."

Scott, who was named team captain by Randy Carlyle, the Ducks' first-year coach, has had to make adjustments to his surroundings.

"I think I'm still figuring it out," he said.

Anaheim right wing Petr Sykora, who was Scott Niedermayer's teammate with the Devils, noticed a change in him.

"I think he is better because before he was really quiet, and now he's the leader here," Sykora said. "He's the one who's talking in the locker room, who gets the guys going. He's just a great captain."

Even though the Ducks are struggling after signing Scott to the most lucrative free-agent deal of the N.H.L.'s new salary-cap era (later tied by Chicago's Nikolai Khabibulin), Burke said, "I'd do that deal again in a heartbeat."

Scott listed what he liked most about playing with his brother.

"It's just little things," he said. "You go to practice, he's there every day. On the road, maybe we go out for dinner. Not every day. But it's always there. We're competing together for our team, trying to help us win. It's a lot of fun. It's something we'll remember forever."

Their cousin Jason Strudwick, who plays for the Rangers, said the Niedermayer brothers spent a recent Saturday evening watching the Rangers outlast Washington in a 15-round shootout, the longest in the N.H.L. With the Rangers facing defeat in the 14th round, Strudwick, who unlike his cousins is not known for his scoring touch, scored to force the 15th round.

"They called me after the goal," said Strudwick, whose father, Wayne, is Carol Niedermayer's brother. "They said they fell off their couch."

But neither Niedermayer brother wants to take togetherness too far. That was evident when Scott was asked if he rooms with his brother on the road.

"No," he said with a laugh. "That might have been a little much."

 

Re: New NHL vs. the old NHL

NHL salary cap will be bumped up to $40-to-$45 million

N.H.L. Salary Cap Will Rise, Perhaps to $45 Million

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: December 16, 2005

The salary cap for N.H.L. teams will rise next season, to $40 million to $45 million from the current $39 million, Commissioner Gary Bettman said yesterday.

Bettman, who presented the news to owners at the end of a two-day meeting, projected overall revenues of just over $2 billion.

"Clearly, the cap is going up, and that's good for everybody," Bettman said.

The salary cap, based on league revenue, was established after a bitter player lockout that wiped out all of last season.

"It does provide a different landscape," John Ferguson Jr., general manager of the Toronto Maple Leafs, said of the cap. "We negotiated some deals last summer and stayed out of some, frankly, because of that uncertainty."

If the cap goes to $45 million, the maximum salary for a player would rise to $9 million from $7.8 million.

"I think everybody in this business was probably looking at next year the cap possibly coming down or staying the same," Larry Pleau, the St. Louis Blues' general manager, said. "Now all of our thought processes looking forward is definitely going to be different."