Who should be captain ?

James Mirtle has a good piece on who should be captain of the Thrashers, Panthers, Kings, Rangers, Leafs, Flyers, Lightning and the Canucks. He list possible candidates for each team mentionned above. So let’s start with the most obvious choices on different teams.

The New York Rangers, it’s a no brainer, Chris Drury, that is one reason why Sather signed him as a UFA last summer, as he knew that he would be parting with Jagr and Shanahan.

The Philadelphia Flyers, the same thing, no doubt Mike Richards will get the nod. They did not invest all that $$$$ on his possible 50 goal a year seasons, because it won’t happen. He will be a 20 to 25 goal a year center.

In Tampa Bay, again there, no brainer, Vincent Lecavalier, will be captain of the Bolts until he retires.

Now for the less obvious.

Atlanta, Mirtle listed three possibilities to replace Holik. They are Niclas Havelid, Ilya Kovalchuk and Slava Kozlov. I am not sure I would pick any of them, as your best players don’t also make for good captains. I think Todd White would be a good captain and a locker room presence.

In Florida, the choices are : Bouwmeester, Horton and Cory Stillman. Bouwmeester’s status is up in the air, so would not be a good choice. So it’s a toss up between Stillman and Horton. I would go with Stillman, he a proven leader, he has two cup rings, would be a good influence on the youngsters.

The Kings, the choices are : Armstrong, Brown (Dustin), Frolov, Kopitar and Stoll. I think Brown would make a good captain.

Oh yes the Leafs, now this is interesting, as that person will have big shoes to fill with Sundin gone. The candidates are : Jason Blake, Kaberle, Kubina and Mayers. Mirtle had put McCabe, but I doubt he would want that job anyways, this notwithstanding his possible trade to Florida or elsewhere.

The Vancouver Canucks, the candidates are : Kesler, Mitchell and Ohlund. Ohlund is a UFA a the end of the season, if they are tanking by the tradedeadline in early March, no doubt he could be a sought after defensemen for a team looking to good deep in the playoffs. So it remains between Kesler and Mitchell, I think he will get the nod.

Like everyone else, I’m getting sick of hearing of the where will Mats Sundin go ? story. As long as he stays silent and let’s the speculation go on, it will get sickening for fans all over the NHL, not only in the cities where has gotten offers from, but others also. Turn the microphones off and use the old it’s ‘’off the record’’ line, and you surely will get snarks from a GM. As in ‘’ How long will this take, we can’t wait all season for him to decide.’’ The worst part is, is that even Gary Bettman can’t even intervene. Hopefully he comes to a decide soon and puts an end to the saga.

Three years after the signing of the new CBA, there is still a misconception on who counts against the cap, espacially when it comes to long term injuries. It’s also the same for short term injuries. Just because a player goes off the active roster, it does not mean his salary is off the books, he still counts in the team’s upper limit count. Players on long term injury reserve, and the team applied for the exemption, and that are close to the upper limit, can go over the limit, but not by all of the injured player’s salary. I will use the situation with Ryan Whitney in Pittsburgh. Presently the Penguins sit at 55,360,867 which leaves them with 1,339,133 in cap space. Whitney’s cap hit is 4,000,000. Take that amount, substract what is left in cap space, and that is amount they can go over. Teams don’t lose their cap space because of this, it’s more calculate how much they can go over. Teams can replace an injured player such as Whitney,with as many as they wish, as long as the total is not larger than the replaced player’s salary/cap hit.

Hopefully news picks up between now and Saturday, see you then.

Waiting for Mats and ….

Here we are Monday August 18th, and all of the NHL is holding it’s breath on where Mats Sundin will land next season. Of course, first he has to decide if he is going to play in the NHL again. That’s when the derby will really begin. Watch the rumour mill go wild, like it’s not already. Teams interested in him, will scramble to clear cap space in order that his contract fits in. Only Vancouver would only have to clear about a million in cap space to fit their offer to Sundin.

The Rangers are pretty close to the cap, as they have less than a million in cap space. The Flyers also have cap issues, as they are over the season limit of 56.7 million. Philadelphia is 1,031,667 $ in the red. Trading Jeff Carter for Bouwmeester, will not solve their cap problems. According to former RDS analyst, Yvon Pedneault, the offer the Canadiens made Sundin, was around 8 million, and the Habs fave about 6,564,699 $ in Cap space. No doubt Gainey will have to make a few trades for draft picks to make way for Sundin, if he returns to La belle province to play an another season.

Joe Sakic, like Sundin is still undecided about his future in the NHL, but unlike his former teammate from the Quebec Nordiques days, Sakic will either play in Colorado or retire. The Colorado Avalanche have enough cap space to sign Sakic, they have 12,725,000 $, so there is no cap issue in this case.

I don’t think too many Leafs fans will be to disappointed to see Bryan McCabe leave Toronto in two weeks, the day he recieves his bonus money from the Leafs and is officially traded to the Florida Panthers. His last game as a Leaf, was in Montreal when speared young Gregory Stewart in the groin area and left the ice giving the fans the bronx cheer.

Chicago: The last stop for Bowman ?

The legendary coach took on a new challlenge last week, by accepting the position of Senior advisor to the Chicago Black Hawks. Is this the last stop in hockey for Scotty Bowman ? if you look at it in the perspective that he will get a chance to work with his son, at age 74 and soon to be 75, there is no doubt, it most likely will be, of course the master will have the final word on this. As we know, his son Stanley, named after the cup he has won more than any other coach in NHL history, has been battling cancer, the same that forced Mario Lemieux to sit out part of the 1992-93 season, when his dad was coaching the Pittsburgh Penguins.

This will be Scotty Bowman’s sixth and possibly last stop in a career that has spanned over four decades. Previous stops where until recently, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Montreal and St-Louis, where it all started in fall of 1967, when then the late Lynn Patrick whow as Gm and coach with the Blues, turned the bench over to the Young Scotty Bowman. In his first three seasons as bench boss, he brought a group of rejected players to three consecutives Stanley cup finals, losing all three and not even winning a single game. Of course the obvisious question was, what could this guy do with a better team ? Shortly after beeing fired as Gm in St-Louis, he got a call from the late Sam Pollock, who was already becoming a legend and was Gm of the Montreal Canadiens, who had just won the 1971 edition of the Stanley cup playoffs. Pollock did not offer Bowman the coaching job in his initial conversation with Scotty, that would come later. In fall of 1971, the Montreal Canadiens would have two new faces, who would come to write new chapters in the history of the great franchise, Scotty Bowman and Guy Lafleur, would team up to make the 70’s editions of les Canadiens, the strongest in hockey history. In the summer following the team’s third straight cup win, Bowman signed a two year deal, but would come to regret it in a way, as the Canadiens and the Forum were to be sold from Bronfman’s to Molson Breweries of Canada (who held on to the team til they sold a majority of it to now owner George Gillett Jr. in 2001). In the agreement of the sale, Sam Pollock would no longer be Gm, but could not tell Bowman. Scotty signed the contract thinking that Pollock would be his boss. In the spring of 1979, following the Canadiens fourth straight cup win, Bowman got offers to go elsewhere, he chose to exercise the option in the contract, which still had a year left, and opted for the Buffalo Sabres.

The Years in Buffalo did not turn out to be Scotty’s best moments in hockey, which in a way where of his own doing. He gutted a team that was maybe a few players short of a Stanley cup, and started a real bad re-building process, that went contrary to what Pollock did in Montreal. Not all went bad for Bowman during his seven year tenure in the great lakes city, he did make a few good choices, as in Housley, Barrasso, who he would recommend to Craig Patrick Gm in Pittsburgh as part of the early 90’s Penguins cup winning teams. When it all ended in Buffalo, a lot of people thought that Bowman’s reputation would be tarnished, and could be the end of one best coaching careers.

After his stint with Buffalo, he went on to become an analyst on Hockey Night in Canada, until he was offered a position with the Pittsburgh Penguins in the off season of 1990. Scotty was in charge of player personel and development. The Penguins won the Stanley Cup in the spring of 1991. Bob Johnson who coached that team, fell ill during that summer, and eventually passed away before the beginning of season. Scotty was asked to step in, which he did, it was not time bring in someone new. Bowman guide the Penguins to a second straight cup in 1992. Scotty and the Penguins were not as lucky in the spring of 1993, as they bowed out in round two of the playoffs. Bowman’s former team the Montreal Canadiens, coached by former wings coach, Jacques Demers, won the prize that year.

The Detroit Red Wings offered the coaching job to Bowman in summer of 1993. Scotty went on to win three more Stanley Cups as coach, he retired in the spring of 2002, after passing his mentor Toe Blake with his 9^th cup as coach. Before joining the BlackHawks, Scotty had spent fifteen years in Detroit.

His NHL coaching and executive career have come full circle, as he is back where it all started, in the american midwest.

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.