Who will be buyers or sellers

Keeping with the pace the teams have had since the beginning of the season, here what the standings could look like a week before the trade deadline.

Eastern Conference

1. Ottawa 86
2. New Jersey 73
3. Carolina 70
4. Buffalo 69
5. Montreal 68
6. Boston 66
7. Islanders 65 (more wins)
8. Rangers 65
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9. Florida 64 (more wins)
10. Philadelphia 64
11. Atlanta 63 (more wins)
12. Pittsburgh 63
13. Toronto 63
14.Tampa Bay 55
15. Washington 51

West

1.Detroit 95
2.Dallas 80
3.Colorado 75
4.Minnesota 73
5.Vancouver 71
6. St-Louis 70 (more wins)
7. San Jose 77
8. Anaheim 69
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9. Calgary 66
10.Chicago 64 (more wins)
11.Colombus 64
12.Phoenix 63
13.Nashville 62
14. Edmonton 58
15. Los Angeles 44

Approximate Cap spending average per division, conference and league

To make this more interesting, I divided the big picture, as I pinned division against division and conference against conference, Hopefully to show you that parity is not only on the ice, but also can be in the numbers (cap spending), and could explain why trades are not being done as often as under the old CBA.

Using the numbers from nhlscap.com, I lined up the estimated cap charges, for each team in each division. Added them up and divided by five, which gave me an average for teams from a division. Once all the divisions where all added up, I took the total for the conference and divided by 15. Then grouped every thing to together, and it gave me the league’s approximate average cap spending per team. So let’s start with the Eastern Conference. Numbers used are dated from December 10^th 2007.

NorthEast Division

Cap Hit	Paid out	Remaining	Cap Space
$48,147,289	$18,795,466	$29,351,823	$2,152,711

Atlantic Division

Cap Hit	Paid out	Remaining	Cap Space
$46,673,743	$18,220,231	$28,453,512	$3,626,257

SouthEast Division

Cap Hit	Paid out	Remaining	Cap Space
$44,346,582	$17,074,620	$27,223,720	$5,953,418

Eastern Conference

Cap Hit	Paid out	Remaining	Cap Space
$46,389,205	$18,030,106	$28,343,018	3,904,129

Central Division

Cap Hit	Paid out	Remaining	Cap Space
$44,784,646	$17,295,392	$27,489,254	$5,515,354

NorthWest

Cap Hit	Paid out	Remaining	Cap Space
$48,107,689	$18,573,757	$29,533,932	$2,192,311

Pacific

Cap Hit	Paid out	Remaining	Cap Space
$44,547,937	$17,390,371	$27,157,566	$5,752,063

Western Conference

Cap Hit	Paid out	Remaining	Cap Space
$45,813,424	$17,753,173.20	$28,060,250.40	$4,486,576.20

NHL

Cap Hit	Paid out	Remaining	Cap Space
$46,101,314	$17,891,639	$28,201,634	$4,195,352

Six teams in the Eastern conference are below that conference’s average. Five teams are below the Western conference’s average. Twelve teams are below the league’s average.

Hope you enjoyed the exercise. This is not written in stone, it’s more to give you all a general idea of what teams are spending and what Gm’s face on a daily basis.

Habs and Tampa and...

The Tampa Bay lightning will make their first trip to Montreal this season. Tampa is coming to Habtown in a bad mood, after getting a wallop from the Leafs in Toronto, 6-1. Tortorella will certainly be in foul mood also, oh yes, he is always in that mood. Even if Vincent Lecavalier is putting up good numbers, it's not helping the lightning, as the rest of the team has failed to follow his lead.

The Habs are also struggling of late, espacially at the Bell Center, where they have lost their last five games. Like the Lightning, the Habs have a 3-6-1 record in their last ten games. About the only two things are to the Canadiens advantage, is the powerplay and the fact that their record when scoring first is similar to Tampa's.

Carbonneau has tried about every combination possible in the last month. He probably has more combinations in that month, than anybody that has played the 6/49 in the last year.

Reading thru out alot of Forums in cyberspace,The Habs fans are contesting Carbonneau's leadership and decisions. Nothing new in Montreal. I don't think he is a bad coach, and neither is he a good one, so how to balance between both ? I guess you learn. Two things that I will hold against Carbo, his lack of getting a coach for the defense, he could of turned to his former teammate,Larry Robinson, who would not of wanted the head coaching job in Montreal for all the money in the world. Robinson having the experience at coaching at the NHL level, could of acted as mentor, as he did when he played.

Two of the toughest jobs to hold in Quebec, are Premier and coach of the Canadiens. Your a king when things are going right, but you look for a place to hide when things are going wrong.

Pat Hickey of the Gazette is playing grinch this year, as he has told Habs fans not expect to see local boy Lecavalier in a red white and blue sweater anytime soon.Anyways, why would he come to Montreal, when he can get St-Hubert BBQ chicken delivered in Tampa. For those of you that don't know, it's a chain of franchises in Quebec and Ontario.

Well it seems that Scott Niedermeyer is ready to make a comeback, but Brian Burke must perform some monetary gymnastics so that he can be put on the active roster. Bob McKenzie from TSN wrote about this last week on his blog. The tagging rule, what the hell is that. Well Irish Blues from nhlscap.com has a page on the issue.Be sure to consult it for any CBA matter that you would like to know.

See you next week.Check back here during the NHL's christmas break, as I will post projections on how the final standings could look like, if the same pace continues for your team, be warned, it might not be pretty for some of you.

Hockey blogosphere and …

On Hockey night in canada’s pre-game segment of Inside Hockey, Elliotte Friedman and Ron Maclean discussed the new wave of hockey reporting, the blogosphere. The bloggers, and we are many, do it, for the fun of it, but also to get our points across on how we see the game of hockey. Some are hoping that they can eventually do it for a living, and join the boys and girls on the beat in the pressbox.

Friedman and Maclean discussed about the many blogs and sites they visit to get their information. We saw Ron zip thru a few sites. One of them was James Mirtle’s blog. We also got a glimpse at Kukla’s Korner, operated by NHL.com’s own Paul Kukla, also another blogger and writer. Spector, Lyle Richardson, who blogs and writes for Foxsports. So if one of those sites has a link to your blog, make sure you keep it updated on regular basis, who knows it may just might be seen on Hockey night in Canada, if they decide to add more to the story later on in the season.

On Kukla’s Korner, on the links page, you will find a multitude of blogs and hockey sites, the same with Spector’s and James Mirtle’s. You could spend hours surfing from one blog to an another. So hopefully, bloggers will get there just due in the future.

The Pittsburgh Pittsburgh have put veteran winger,Mark Recchi on waivers, hoping that he will be claimed. In return the Pens would be off the hook for the remainder of his 2 million dollar salary and cap hit. If he goes unclaimed, but is put back re-entry waivers, the Pens would be on the hook for half of the remaining salary if a team chose to pick him up. Is there a market for a 39 year old right winger, even at half the salary ? We shall find out.