fans like you.
I don’t think Roberto Luongo is “unwanted”. If you believe GM Mike Gillis after yesterday’s trade deadline, it appears 5 teams were interested in Lu’s services. And if you think about it, the fact that he didn’t trade the star netminder says that he’d much rather have him in his lineup – as a backup and a security blanket – than trade him for a second round draft pick.
Another year, another season preview. As usual, we’ve ranked each team’s goaltending, defense, forwards and coaches based on expectations and past performance. However, given the shortened season, we’ve also taken a few other things into consideration.
Now that teams are allowed up to 2 compliance buyouts over the next two off-seasons, and the buyout amounts not counting towards the salary cap, it may very well be creating some additional suitors for Luongo’s services.
Speculation is rampant that Leaf ownership wanted a Luongo deal, Burke did not, and that disagreement led to today’s leadership change. The thing is, from hockey perspective, NOT trading for Luongo now is the most logical thing to do.
J.J. Guerrero rounds up some Canucks-related links around the Smylosphere.
Tom Wakefield gives his take on who should win some of the key NHL awards and takes a look at other issues around the league.
As we wind down the 2011-12 NHL season, it’s only fitting to take a moment and pay our respects to the “dearly departed” – those teams we know will be golfing in a couple of weeks. Here now is a quick look at each of the teams looking ahead to 2012-13 already, in reverse order of today’s standings. Columbus Blue Jackets What went wrong: Pretty much everything. James Wisniewski’s 8-game suspension crippled the team out of the gate. Coach Scott Arniel tried switching his team’s approach from an aggressive to conservative style mid-season, but the results were too poor to save...
Yes, this is the week of returns in the NHL, with Sidney Crosby playing against the Rangers on Thursday and all signs pointing to Alex Radulov returning to the Predators in the near future. And yet if you take a step back, what you’ve really got in the NHL right now is an epic race for the final playoff spots in the Western Conference. As of Wednesday morning, there were five teams separated by a single point in the standings for the final two playoff spots in the West. Which of these teams will make the playoffs? Which of these...
It seems these days not a day goes by that there isn’t something about the mediocre Toronto Maple Leafs that’s making the headlines. At first blush, the signing of Mikhail Grabovski to a five year, $27.5 million contract seems rather ludicrous. We’re talking about high-end salary for a streaky scorer that’s never put up 30-goals or 60 points. But is the contract really that far out of whack? Let’s do this arbitration-style, and look at some comparables. Comparable #1: The 2004 NHL Entry Draft – Part 1 Grabovski was drafted 150th overall by the Montreal Canadiens in the 2004 NHL...
Let’s get this out of the way first. I’m still not convinced Columbus’ interest in dealing Rick Nash wasn’t a creation of TSN and Sportsnet. The two networks needed a big name to speculate about to drive up ratings for their annual Trade Deadline TV marathons. Sadly for those networks, Nash remains a Blue Jacket at least until the draft, where the hype will be built up all over again. I am giddy with anticipation (and by giddy I mean hitting my head with a shoe to make the idea of 24 hour coverage of “The Rick Nash Trade –...
