Tuesday, February 26, 2008

NHL TRADE DEADLINE:LIVE BLOG

8:00 AM: NHL Network is on, Kids are running around, TSN feed on NHL Network reporting Hossa to either Ottawa or Montreal.

8:09 AM:Trade Proposal, Brad Richards to Vancouver for... Minor Leaguers. The returns for Hossa's proposal respectively, Vermette and prospects from ottawa. Higgins, Lapierre and, Ryder.

8:27 AM: One negative about having the TSN broadcast on NHL network is the Canadian slant. They've just spent 15 minutes talking about Mats Sundin and his refusal to waive his NTC.

8:40 AM: Trade Proposal, Richards to Dallas for Smith, Halpern and Jussi Jokinen. Goaltending help in Smith could be the deal maker here.

9:02 AM: Marcel Hossa is already in Montreal. The Thrashers are playing the Habs tonight. Still no mention of any team south of the Canadian Border. It's all Habs, Leafs and Sens.

9:10 AM: I'm starting to understand how Geraldo felt. Darren Pang's top 5 cup favorites. Anaheim,Detroit, New Jersey, Montreal, Dallas Pittsburgh. John Buccigross, Ducks, Devils, Wings, Sens, Stars. Millbury, Red Wings, Stars, Ducks, Devils, Habs. Pierre McGuire, Ducks, Stars, Wild, Pens, Rangers.

9:27 AM: This Just In!!! The Toronto Maple Leafs have decided to have a team workout on the beach in Florida. They even have a guy live outside the hotel on the beach reporting. Holy Hell guys this is airing in the US, how about a little love for the US teams.

10:07AM: Guys on TSN mentioning there will be fewer trades. Reasons, Parity in the NHL, Teams looking for large returns, Not wanting to trade young cheap talent. WOW where have I heard that before. These guys are geniuses.

10:33AM: Trade: New Jersey Devils acquire Bryce Salvador from St. Louis for Cam Janssen.

10:45AM: Janssen being interviewed on TSN, Happy to be heading to St. Louis apparently his hometown.

11:00AM: Doomsday alert set to 5hrs. TSN/NHL network is turning into THN, The Hossa network. Earthshattering news out of Montreal, Hossa will not skate with the Thrashers in the morning skate. At this point I hope Hossa goes anywhere other than Montreal. It would be great to see the looks on these broadcasters faces. No news as to what he had for breakfast or what color underwear he is wearing,if any.

11:18AM: Spoke too soon. TSN reporter"Marcel Hossa is sitting in his hotel room with a beautiful view of Montreal having a nice Brunch."

11:20AM: Trade: Toronto Maple Leafs trade Wade Belak to the Florida Panthers for a 5th round draft pick.

11:26AM:Trade: Brian Campbell to the San Jose Sharks, return unstated as of yet.

11:35: The return on the Campbell deal is Steve Bernier and a First Round pick.

I must admit I thought Campbell would fetch more than that.

11:38AM: Brad Richards to Dallas, terms have been approved by both sides, Richards has to waive his NTC.

11:44am: Trade: Brad Richards has waived his No Trade Clause and is headed to Dallas, along with Johan Holmqvist for Mike Smith, Jussi Jokinen and Jeff Halpern.

11:50am: Trade: Montreal trades Cristobal huet to the Caps for a 2nd Rnd pick.

Strange move by the Habs unless they have another deal set up. Hard to believe they'd bail on their #1 goalie now. Maybe Hedberg will be part of a deal with Hossa to MTL.

12:05pm: Deadline less than 3 hrs: Well three hours to go and one big name remains. Marian Hossa. This past hour has flown by with the activity. This live blogging stuff is fun. Fast paced, mind going in 20 different directions at once, feeding kids lunch. Craziness.

12:16pm: Trade: Florida has traded Ruslan Salei to Colorado for Dmitri Skrastins and a 3rd round pick.

12:22pm: Trade: Chicago Blackhawks trade Tuommo Ruttu for Carolina's Andrew Ladd.

12:47PM: Just dropped my daughter off at school, now I get to play catch up.

12:49PM:Trade: At 12:36 Matin Lapointe was traded from Chicago to Ottawa for a 6th round pick. My guess is this is to add some grit and depth with Chris Neil being injured.

1:00PM: 2hrs left until trade deadline.

1:03PM: Trade: Adam Foote has been traded to Colorado from Columbus for a First round pick. Rob Blake also rumored to head back to the Mountains, no word on if Roy and Borque will come out of retirement to have a reunion of the '02 cup winners.

1:12PM: Trade rumor, Sergei Fedorov to Washington for ??? Fedorov with Ovechkin will be alot of fun to watch.

1:26pm: Trade:Fedorov to Washington is confirmed for Theo Ruth? Freshman at Notre Dame. Way to cash in Columbus.

1:37pm: Trade: Vancouver has traded Matt Cooke for Matte Pettinger, Washington is going to make a run at the Southeast title. Good trade for them.

1:40pm: Trade rumor, Davidson from San Jose to The Islanders. for a possible 7th rounder. No confirmation yet.

2:00PM: 1 Hour until trade deadline.

2:06PM: Trade: Rob Davison D from San Jose to the Islanders for the Isles 7th round pick. Special thanks to TSN's trade tracker crapping out and their site running at the pace of a Marek Malik wrist shot.

2:32PM: I'm starting to get really antsy here. I want an upgrade on the blueline for the Rangers. An upgrade over Malik and Strudwick would bode well, the clock is ticking though. I'm expecting a flurry of deals to go down to the wire with the announcements not occuring until later in the afternoon. I'll do my best to keep up.

All is clear on the mail front.

2:45PM: 15 minutes until deadline.

2:50PM: 10 minutes and the crickets are still chirping.

2:53PM: Trade: Rangers Acquire Christian Backman for a fourth round pick
2:53PM: Trade:Penguins acquire Hal Gill from Toronto for 2nd round pick and 5th round pick

2:58PM: Trade: Penguins acquire Marian Hossa and Pascal Dupuis for Eric Christiansen, Colby Armstrong , Angleo Esposito.

3:11PM: Trade:Chris Simon traded to the Minnesota Wild for a 6th round pick.

3:14PM: Trade: Detroit Red Wings acquire Brad Stuart from LA Kings for a 2nd round pick and a 4th round pick.

3:20PM: Trade: Rangers acquire Fredrick Sjostrom, and prospects for Al Montoya and Marcel Hossa.
3:21PM:Trade: Anaheim acquires Marc-Andre Bergeron for a 3rd Round Pick
3:21PM: Trade: Florida acquires Chad Kilger for a 3rd Round pick.

Monday, February 25, 2008

Trade Deadline: Prelude

The trade deadline looms just over the horizon. In 24 hours we will finally know what NHL rosters will look like for the remainder of the season, barring any waiver moves of course. So as far as the New York Rangers go, what should we expect. Not much, in my opinion.

There are a few reasons why I don't think anything major will happen, some linked together, some legitimate roadblocks on their own.

1. Parity in the NHL: With the standings, particularly in the Eastern Conference, being so bunched up, leaving so many teams with realistic playoff aspirations the amount of NHL general managers willing to give up quality players are few and far between.

Four teams fall into the "Put a fork in them" category, Tampa Bay, Toronto, Los Angeles and, Edmonton.

A few other teams are nearing that stage, Chicago, St. Louis, Atlanta and, Florida all probably fall into the "Seller" group that those below them in the standings are in.

Other than those eight teams, there are 20 teams looking to improve themselves between now and 3pm tomorrow February 26th. This means it's a sellers market and teams looking to make a big impact on their roster will be paying through the nose to do so.

2. Cap space: The Rangers have $2.3 Million in cap space to work with, not a whole lot when considering any player that would be a significant addition would likely cost quite a bit more than that. Of course you have to factor in the salary of whatever player is leaving and adding that amount to the cap space. Cap space at this point for THIS season is not really an issue. With the 2.3 million and whatever goes the other way it is enough to add just about any player in the NHL. But it what needs to be considered is, if a high priced guy is acquired, and reasonably thinking that a significant ransom was sent the other way, that player would have to be re-signed, and at what price, could end up hurting the team's cap effect in the long run.

3. Chips to deal with: With Paul Mara now injured, Glen Sather has one less chip to trade with. The only defensemen that I could see as being a part of a trade would be Thomas Pock and Marek Malik. Forwards that could be part of a deal, Martin Straka, Petr Prucha, Marcel Hossa.

These players are not going to be enough to bring in a player or players that will have enough of an impact to make trading them worthwhile. Which means then you come to prospects and draft picks. The hot commodities for the Rangers are Artem Anisimov and Bobby Sanguinetti. Now I'm not going to get into the many reasons why I don't want to see them traded, that's another issue. Plain and simple, Do Not Trade These Players.

Part of the reason why Sather has done a fairly decent job at building this organization is that he has acquired a lot of players through the draft. Sather and his staff have done a pretty good job of stockpiling 2nd 3rd and 4th line wingers, and a pretty impresive corps of defensemen through the draft. My point is, draft picks are valuable, proceed with extreme caution when giving them up.

Overall I don't think the Rangers have chips, that they could justify giving up, to acquire the type of player it would require to push this team over the top. Again the sellers market may push the Rangers out of the running for impact players.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

Premature Ecapulation Volume 2.

Okay, first things first. When first looking at the contract cost of Henrik Lundqvist's new deal it obviously jumps out at you as a huge land mine just waiting to obliterate everything from the waist down. But when thinking of contracts I always try to take a deep breath and look at the overall picture with regards to the salary cap.

A few months ago I dove into the Rangers cap situation and tried to see where they were headed going into next season. I had predicted Lundqvist to have a cap hit of $6.5 million for next year so really the scenario that I presented then pretty much still stands up. Having 3/4 of a season to see how things are developing however leaves me with a few revisions to my previous speculations. So here we go, the 3/4 pole edition of Premature Ecapulation.

Forwards under contract for 2008-2009: Scott Gomez, 7.35. Chris Drury, 7.05. Petr Prucha, 1.6. Brandon Dubinsky, .633. Blair Betts, .615. Colton Orr, .538. Ryan Hollweg, .507. Ryan Callahan, .489. Dane Byers .608.

That is nine forwards under contract for the season, total cap hit for that group is $19.39 million.

Restricted Free Agents and their current salaries: Sean Avery,1.9. Nigel Dawes, .475. Greg Moore, .740. Marcel Hossa, .780.

First, Sean Avery. I love watching him play. He adds alot to the experience of being a Ranger fan. If it's not arguing with those that love or hate him, it's laughing at the outlandish things he comes out with in interviews. The entertainment factor alone would want me to see him come back. Since he's been injured alot this season, and will have surgery in the off season, I could see the Rangers getting a decent deal for Avery's services. I'd like to see a 1 or 2 year deal at $2.5 million. Nigel Dawes, when in the lineup, has shown some very nice things. He seems to be the kind of guy that has gotten all he will get out of AHL experience. It's time he became a legit NHLer. I could see him getting a deal a bit lower than Petr Prucha's since Prucha's deal was based on two seasons in which he scored a total of 52 goals. In the sample I've seen from Dawes I would think a 2 year deal at about $950,000 would be about right. Greg Moore would probably be signed for a bit less than his current deal, putting him in the Brandon Dubinsky range of $630,000. Marcel Hossa, Ughhh. Do the Rangers give it one more shot? Only if his brother comes at a discount. More on that later.

So with resigning RFA's for a total of $4.o8 million that brings the total to 12 forwards for $23.47 million.

Defensemen under contract for 2008-2009: Marc Staal, .827. Thomas Pock, .667.

Yep that's it. Obviously the defense corps is going to look a bit different than this year. Or will it.

Restricted Free Agents and current salaries: Fedor Tyutin, 1.02. Daniel Girardi, .750. Ivan Baranka, .521.

Back during Volume one of this thing I had projected Tyutin and Girardi to continue to develop and in turn demand a higher pricetag to retain their services. Well fortunately for cap reasons this hasn't exactly been the case. Both are having difficulties this season, but not so terrible that I'd like to see them go the way of their UFA brethren Marek Malik and Paul Mara.

I'd re-sign them both, Fedor Tyutin for 3 years for $4.75 million and Girardi 3 years for $3.3 million. Tyutin's cap hit would be 1.58, Girardi's 1.1. Baranka I would resign 2 years for $1.5 for a cap hit of .750.

I would also re-sign Jason Strudwick for 1 year for .550 as a depth guy.

That is 6 defensemen for the low low price of, $5.53 million . Add the 23.48 million for the forwards and that brings the skaters under contract total to $29.01 million.

Goaltenders: Henrik Lundqvist, 6.87
Well any speculation about the goaltending situation is gone. The haircut is the #1 goaltender and will be until he turns 31. Case closed. Steve Valiquette has shown that he can be a very capable backup I'd re-sign him and even give him a little raise for his troubles. 2 years at $800,000 per year.

Goaltenders total $7.67 million

That brings us to $36.68 million towards the cap. I'll even prudently add $3.00 million to that figure in bonuses that may or may not carry over to next season so that is $39.68 million of eaten up cap space. If the salary cap does not go up from the $51.00 million that it is this year that would leave a shade over $10 million to sign a top free agent defensemen and a forward. If the cap goes up, even better. If the Rangers re-sign Jaromir Jagr that would obviously put a bit of a dent into that cap space. And what about the prospects that may or may not be available next season. I myself think it's time to let the Jagr era go. I'd make an effort to sign Brian Campbell in the neighborhood of $5 million and hope that works. If it doesn't I roll the dice with prospects and see what they have. If Marian Hossa can be had for less than say 6.5 to 7 million I might consider it, but I'd be hesitant. Would he come at a discount if his brother was re-signed, I doubt it, but I'd still look into it.

So it's back to the "wait and see" game until July for as far as next season's roster goes. The trade deadline looms not too far off so we'll see if there are any shakeups that throw a wrench into my little plan here.