NHL’s Money Madness

It’s day three of the UFA signing frenzy, and yes Gm’s are back to their old habits, $pend, $pend and $pend more. It’s true then,that you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Looking at teams cap payrolls, at cap Central on hockeybuzz.com, you will notice that already, 11 teams are over the 50m + line. Six of those teams are in the west, Anaheim, Calgary, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit and Edmonton. The culprits in the East are : Boston, New Jersey, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay and washington.

The Upper limit this season is 56.7 million, teams will be allowed to spend up to

$ 303, 209.00 daily.

To this date, with the numbers from 10 am ET, teams have spend on average

$ 46, 858, 035 in cap money, and average in cap space at around 9.8 million plus. In actual salaries, $ 46, 336, 327. The difference in the two, is that bonuses are counted in the cap hit and not in the salary. In the Eastern conference, teams have actual salaries averaging at $ 47,242,355 and cap payrolls at 47, 069, 023, with an average cap space of 9.5 million. In Western conference, the actual salary is averaging at $ 45, 430, 298, and the cap payrolls at around $ 46, 647, 047, with cap space at around $ 10 million.

I will try to come up with averages from the three previous seasons and see where we are going with this.

Happy Canada Day

The day we have all been waiting for is finally here. It should be interesting and fun. Of course we are all waiting in anticipation to find out if one Mats Sundin will play an another season in the league, two if so, with who ?

So stay tuned, the fun starts in less than five hours.

Tomorrow's the big day

We will find out where everybody is going or possibly going. Of course the headline of tomorrow's madness, is what will Mats Sundin do ? One thing for sure, he is not going back to Toronto. There is also two other big names that will be sought after. Marian Hossa and Brian Campbell.

The Salary cap is expected to be set at 56.7 million, but we will know tomorrow, before Gary Bettman sounds the bell for the opening of UFA season. To find out where your team is cap wise, you can visit cap central at Hockeybuzz.com. Speaking of the cap, Bob McKenzie from TSN has a good piece on it's going to work this year contrary to the previous three years.

I will be looking forward to tomorrow for sure.

A 56.7 million dollar cap ?

The League will be recording an another hike in revenu which will likely raise the salary cap for 2008-09, to certain estimations around 54 million. Don’t forget that last year, the NHLPA used the 5 percent option in the CBA to hike it to 50.3 million. If the Association should do it again this year, this will mean that we will have a 56.7 million cap, with a minimum of 40.7 million as the cap floor.

During the off-season, teams can exceed the cap by 10 % of the limit, so if the cap limit for next season is 56.7 million, teams can go as high as 62.370 million, from July 1^st til the last day of training camp.

So let’s say the limit is 56.7 million next season, here is an estimated look at what the Gm’s have to work with.

Eastern Conference

Team	Est cap hit hit 08-09	Space available
Boston	48,311,667	8,388,333
Buffalo	39,706,224	16,993,776
Montreal	37,418,633	19,281,367
Ottawa	41,438,996	15,261,004
Toronto	43,929,167	12,770,833
Avg/Team	42,160,937	14,539,063
New Jersey	41,751,073	14,948,927
Islanders	35,259,067	21,440,933
Rangers	42,424,260	14,275,740
Philadelphia*	49,868,333	6,831,667
Pittsburgh	34,557,567	22,142,433
Avg/Team	40,772,060	15,927,940
Atlanta	36,309,676	20,390,324
Florida	40,962,500	15,737,500
Carolina	39,825,000	16,875,000
Tampa Bay	37,378,056	19,321,944
Washington	39,198,878	17,501,122
Avg/Team	38,734,822	17,965,178

Western Conference

Team	Est cap hit hit 08-09	Space available
Chicago	49,247,087	7,452,913
Columbus	28,040,833	28,659,167
Detroit	40,122,778	16,577,222
Nashville	39,041,087	17,658,913
St-Louis	44,615,833	12,084,167
Avg/Team	40,213,524	16,486,476
Calgary	47,598,333	9,101,667
Colorado	30,326,667	26,373,333
Edmonton	44,390,053	12,309,947
Minnesota	37,455,500	19,244,500
Vancouver	35,700,000	21,000,000
Avg/Team	39,094,111	17,605,889
Anaheim	53,026,667	3,673,333
Los Angeles	$37,719,617.00	18,980,383
Phoenix	35,231,667	21,468,333
Dallas	48,573,889	8,126,111
San Jose	41,779,167	14,920,833
Avg/Team	43,266,201	13,433,799

If you need explanations, go visit NHLSCAP.COM

Eighty-five Games later

Yes folks, that’s what it took the league to find a champion in 2008. 85 games, 4 rounds and 15 playoff series. The New Stanley cup Champions played a total of 22 games to win the magic 16.

In the eighty-five games, a total of 458 goals, which comes up to an average of 5.39 per game. Each playoff series took an average of 5.67 games to play.

Round by Round breakdown

Round 1

8 Series - 48 games and 258 goals scored (5.37 per game)

· 3 ----------- 7 game series

· 3 ------------6 game series

· 1-------------5 game series

· 1-------------4 game series

Round 2

4 Series – 20 games and 117 goals scored (5.85 per game)

· 1-----------6 game series

· 2-----------5 game series

· 1-----------4 game series

Round 3

2 Series – 11 games and 56 goals scored (5.09 per game)

· 1-------5 game series

· 1-------6 game series

The Stanley cup Final

1 Series – 6 games and 27 goals (4.50 per game )

Congratulations to the Detroit Red Wings, 2008 Stanley cup Champions

Room for Osgood in the Record book

The NHL created an alternate site for the playoffs and on that site, you can find Both playoff and final series records and in different categories.

One record that could be with in his reach, is one that his teammate Hasek established the last time the Red Wings win the cup. In 2002, Dominik Hasek had gone 166 mins and 3 seconds without letting a goal in against the Carolina Hurricanes, which was 22 mins and 32 seconds shy of Frank McCool’s record. Except McCool had established his record from game 1 in the 1945 cup Final against Detroit. With an another goaless performance by Osgood in game three, he would be only 8 mins and 36 seconds from re-writting Mr.McCool’s record, that has held up for the last 43 years now.

Osgood also could tie a record if he goes unscored on in game three. The most shoutouts in a final series. Martin Brodeur was the last to do it in 2003 against Mike Babcock’s Anaheim team.

If he let’s in less than 3 goals in this series, he would tie Terry Sawchuck for the fewest goals in one series.

Bowman : Red Wings secret weapon

The legendary coach won’t be stopping pucks on Penguins rushes, he won’t be playing the point on the powerplay with Nicklas Lidstrom, he won’t be in front of net chasing loose pucks, but he will be useful in an another way.

Scotty Bowman will have a birds eye view on what Pittsburgh coach Therrien will be throwing on the ice, taking notes and giving his recommendations to Wings coach Mike Babcock.

Pittsburgh coach, Michel Therrien, has said that he does not believe in line matching, one of Bowman’s masterfull skills in his coaching days. Therrien can say that all he wants, but I’m sure he knows that the legendary coach has always had a few tricks up his sleeve. True, Babcock is not Bowman, and has his own way in coaching, which is good, and Scotty won’t deny it, but at the back of Babcock’s mind, he has to say to himself, ‘’ I have a fountain of information, coaching knowledge and experience right in my backward, why not use it.’’

And Why not. You have to be brain dead or not have lived on this planet to not dig in to that vast and immense fountain of information. Babcock is far from being brain dead and has lived on this planet long enough to know that you don’t pass up chance like this, espacially that you have the better chance of winning a Stanley cup this time around then in the first one.Babcock was the coach of the Anaheim Mighty Ducks when they went to the cup finals in 2003 against the New Jersey Devils.

Bowman has won more games in both regular season and playoffs combined, than any player on both sides will ever play in their careers, and that includes both coaches.

A whisper from Bowman to Babcock, could change the series, and we will never know what was said, but it won’t matter once Lidstrom picks up the Stanley cup.

The Detroit Red Wings are headed to their fourth Stanley cup final in eleven years, which comes up to about a cup final appearance every 2.7 years. The Pittsburgh Penguins will make their first in 16 years. Sidney Crosby was not even 5 years old when now owner Mario Lemieux hoisted the big mug and the Conn Smythe Trophy for the second straight time.

The only common point between these teams besides their respective high octane offense, is that Scotty Bowman was behind the bench when both teams last won a Stanley Cup.

Scorring First

Detroit’s record when scoring first during these playoffs is 10-1, when trailing it’s 2-3. Pittsburgh has not lossed when they have scored first, and are even when trailing at 2-2. When leading after period 1, Detroit is 11-1, Pittsburgh is 7-0. Trailing after 1, Detroit is 0-1, Pittsburgh is 1-1.

Leading after two, Detroit is 11-0, Pittsburgh is 9-0. When trailing, Detroit is 0-3 and the Pens are 1-2.

No real advantage for either.

Face-offs

Advantage to Detroit, they are really good in the circle and it’s become their bread and butter. Detroit is at 55.7 % and Pittsburgh is at 46.7 %

Detroit has very good face-off guys in Draper and Zetterberg. Draper is at 63.4 and Zetterberg is at 57.9 %.

Jordan Staal has been the best for Pittsburgh so far in this run, but Crosby and the rest will have to step up their face-off skills to beat a very good Red Wings team.

Turnovers

As we saw in the Dallas-Detroit series, turnovers killed the Stars. Zetterberg and Datsyuk have 34 takeaways between the both of them. Pittsburgh is not too bad in that area either, as the Crosby line totals 40 takeaways, so beware Detroit.

I will say Detroit in 5

Finals Stats

Face-off circle is doing in Dallas and Philadelphia

Face-offs are key to the success you have in the playoffs, but not always. Detroit is ripping the Dallas Stars appart in the face-off circle, and in is being transformed into goals.

Look at the table for the three games played so far. These are face-offs in all three zones.

% percentage for the series.

Detroit	OFF	DEF	NEUT	TOT	Gametotal	%
Game 1	16	9	10	35	58	60.3
Game 2	13	12	14	39	55	70.9
Game 3	6	8	17	31	54	57.4
	35	29	41	105	167	62.9
	59.3	65.9	64.1

Dallas	OFF	DEF	NEUT	TOT	Gametotal	%
Game 1	10	6	7	23	58	39.7
Game 2	6	4	6	16	55	29.1
Game 3	8	5	10	23	54	42.6
	24	15	23	62	167	37.1
	40.7	34.1	35.9

You can’t expect to win to many games or series with averages like the ones obtained by Dallas.

In the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh series, the guys leading the series are miserable on the face-offs, but the pucks seems to follow them to the net and in.

Pittsburgh	OFF	DEF	NEUT	TOT	Gametotal	%
Game 1	7	9	12	28	54	51.9
Game 2	10	8	13	31	72	43.1
Game 3	5	5	11	21	50	42.0
	22	22	36	80	176	45.5

Philadelphia	OFF	DEF	NEUT	TOT	Gametotal	%
Game 1	8	3	15	26	54	48.1
Game 2	15	13	13	41	72	56.9
Game 3	8	3	18	29	50	58.0
	31	19.0	46.0	96	176	54.5

Winning face-offs don’t mean anything if your not doing anything with it afterwards.Detroit is steamrolling the Stars, and the Flyers are getting steamrolled, as they are not completing the work after the puck drops.

Most likely we will have a Pittsburgh-Detroit Stanley cup final. You can be sure that Detroit will want to continue it’s winning ways in the face-off circle, so Penguins beware, sharpen up your skills as the Wings mean business.