I'm not sure how many people watch hockey here, but if you do discuss here. The sabres lost 2 players today. Briere signed a 8 year 52-mill deal with the flyers and Drury got signed by the rangers as well as Scott Gomez of the New Jersey Devils.
Flyers to. Let's not forget how bad they did last season <_<. Some leafs news for you guys. They just signed Jason Blake to a 5-year, 20-mill deal. If you don't know he's a winger and he's going to play with Sundin, hopefully this might work.
Ryan Smyth just signed a 5-year, 31.25 mill deal with the Colorado Avalanche. The blues signed Paul Kariya to a 3-yaer contract and Michael Nylander is off to the oilers. EDIT: Petr Sykora and Darryl Sydor have signed with Penguins, while the leafs have resigned Bates Battaglia.
I like the Penguins picking up some veteran talent for their young guys. Owen Nolan off to Calgary. The deal might be around 2-mill and its for 1 year.
haha calgary. they get 2 million dollars of occupied bench space. nolan's too old to be the same power forward presence he was in his prime. that being said, manny fernandez to boston. good move by boston to solidify the net. fernandez is a goalie with a good save percentage, although this spells trouble for tim thomas, who will likely be seeing reduced playing time. kings sign michal handzus, ladislav nagy, kyle calder and tom preissing. three nice scoring options, and a good stay-at-home guy with the senators. brad stuart's not a bad defenceman himself. this move should give vishnovsky and blake some relief and solidify the D for the kings. the way things look right now, the islanders need help. fast. they lost their main goal-scorer, and an all-star power forward, so unless their draft picks come in bunches for the next few years, or if they get a big-name free agent, expect them to be near the basement next season.
Some leaf news Goalie Toskala was signed by the leafs for $8 million, two-year extension. I say give Aubin another chance, he played amazing during 05/06. Just give him another chance to up Raycroft.
and theres some controversy about Nylander, reports say he agreed to deal with Oilers, but then signed with the Caps. The Rangers might have some cap problems, depending on how low Shanny, Lundquist, Avery, and Prucha are willing to sign. Regehr and Iginla also got contract extensions
i don't know what the hell the leafs are doing...they have to 2 back up goalies fighting for the #1 spot......and signing blake to 5 years isn't smart either.. since he's in his late 30's. <_< Fire this GM!!! Leafs fans have suffered enough!!
don't forget about raycroft. this could be a 1 & 1A goalie situation, but I really do like them getting toskala. toskala is quality. 4 million's like a bargain for a guy that led the sharks to the conference semifinals. considering, you know, kimmo "average" timmonen is getting 6 million from the flyers next year. aubin can go back to the marlies. and other news: the thrashers took off a HUGE scorer off the free agent market today. slava kozlov signed a multi-year deal. not the smartest move to have a multi-year deal, but when brendan shanahan's the only decent forward left on the free agent market, you know the pool is starting to run dry. very, very quickly. buffalo lost both their captains, but they've got a lot of nice RFA's that they'd like to re-sign. look for vanek, paille and paetsch to return to the sabres. the rangers have a lot of RFA's themselves, but they're all HIGH HIGH quality: lundqvist, their starting goalie, will be expecting around toskala's range. then you've got avery, marcel hossa and petr prucha, who are coming off not-too-bad seasons. lundqvist might bring them over the cap though. 60% chance the rangers will make a move to add cap space. as for the canadiens, I don't see them doing much else in the free agent market, cause they've got to deal with michael ryder in arbitration. the guy's going to be expecting at least 3-5 million after a second straight 30-goal season. some big names still on the board: - sheldon souray -> excellent power play defenceman, a little weak on his own end though - brendan shanahan -> at the age of 37, he still managed to get 40 goals with the rangers last year. expect him to re-sign. - darren mccarty -> nice checking forward, did great with calgary last year. - vitaly vishnevski -> hard-checking defenceman will be a huge presence if anyone signs this guy. nashville certainly won't.
Aubin can go to marlies ONLY if it clears waivers first. If another team picks him up during waiver process, say goodbye to him. That's how Leafs got Travis Green last season, claiming him off during waivers. What I believe is... get rid of Raycroft. Toskala gets #1 position, and use Aubin while Toskala takes some much-needed rest. Aubin is good, particularly during the push to the playoff 2 years ago. But it seems like goalie problem will remain with the leafs until they finally putt Justin Pogge from Marlies to Leafs
well raycroft did an ok job with the leafs. 37 wins isn't too shabby, but he's only paid 2 million dollars/yr for another two years. that's a low-risk, high-reward goalie right there. I say, let aubin go to waivers. if he goes to the marlies, wouldn't he just be backing up pogge? aubin had worse numbers than raycroft. yes, an 89% save percentage isn't super, but aubin didn't even crack 88. his goals against average was horrendous. 3.43 just won't do it for a backup.
Just give Aubin another shot. Better than wasting money on goalies..... Roenick Retire http://ca.sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news...7vLYF?slug=txroenickretires&prov=st&type=lgns
if the leafs are going to give aubin another shot, it's going to be with the marlies. as much as I hate the leafs, they're built on being able to make the playoffs every year. aubin, if anything, should be an injury replacement. again, I'm going to quote again the fact that he couldn't even crack 88% in save percentage. the leafs have some above-average defence, leaky as it is, but honestly. if you allow 3 goals or more per 60 minutes on a pretty darn good team, you need to re-tune your game in the minors.
i liked aubin and he should of got more starts when raycroft was shakey...but maurice was too committed to raycroft...this season will be different aubin will have no chance now... with Toskala in the equation ...aubin will be back in the minors or shipped out of town...im sure other teams will be interested in him...he's a decent goalie once given the chance....it's very clear our goalies will be Ray/Tosk next season....just the mattter of who gets the starting Job.
exactly. that being said, guerin and comrie were signed by the isles. guerin for 2 years, 4.5/year. comrie for 1 year/3.375. these are nice short-term signings for the isles. sure, they lost blake for an astonishing five years (do the leafs realize that he'll be 38 at the end of this? granted, he's getting paid 3 mil/year in the final two years of his contract) as well as ryan smyth, but it's a move the isles pretty much had to make. guerin scored as many goals as his age last year, which isn't shabby at all. comrie had a lackluster year last year, splitting the season with phoenix and ottawa, but hey, he didn't do too badly in the playoffs (save for his finals performance). 1-2 year contracts are very low risk, and will be nice to get rid of down the stretch seeing as okposo and tambellini are waiting in the wings. hasek signs 1 year for 2 mil with the wings. this is almost laughable, and yet, again, risk-free. hasek pulled off some nice numbers last year. if he gets injured, the wings can always fall back on chris osgood with nice defending in front of him, with lidstrom and company.
