Free Agency Update July 4th

It is with great pleasure that I announce the Zach Parise and Ryan Suter drama is now behind us. On July 4th also known as independance day, the two stars signed away their independance to the Minnesota Wild. NHL Free Agency may officially begin as the two guys holding everything up are now off the market.

Zach Parise and Ryan Suter sign 13 year deals with Minnesota
Yes you read that correctly Parise and Suter the two biggest names on the market this free agency have decided to join together and play on the same team. The Wild and the two superstars have agreed on 13 year identical contracts worth $98 million. The contracts will keep them in Minnesota until the 2024-2025 season. Parise the former Devil got the most attention during the free agency fenzy, having been reported to have a verbal negotiation with the Red Wings and being harrassed by Sidney Crosby to come and join the Penguins. Suter flew under the radar and stayed quite right up until signing with the Wild. Both players are 27 and joining just their 2nd NHL team in their careers. Despite these two massive signing the Wild will still be in a dogfight for the 8th and final playoff seed in the West next season. (yes the West is that good)

We view this as a rare opportunity for us to transform our franchise by adding two marquee players, who are both in the prime of their careers, at the same time.”

Now that these two are off the market expect talks to heat up around other free agents who are looking to offer their services to the 29 other teams that lost out of the Parise and Suter sweepstakes. Only time will tell if this turns out to be a solid deal.

Jaromir Jagr signs 1 year deal with Dallas
The Russian star is heading to the Stars for next season. The Stars believe the 40 year old still has gas left in the tank and can help their team take the next step. The two sides agreed to a 1 year deal worth $4.55 million.

Steve Sullivan signs 1 year deal with Pheonix
The Coyotes went after the veteran forward to help improve their power play. The two sides agreed to a 1 year $1.85 million contract

Taylor Pyatt signs 2 year deal with the New York Rangers
Pyatt is a player I have always been a fan of, don't ask me why i've just always liked to watch him play.   He spent last season in the desert with the coyotes. The two sides agreed to a 2 year $3.1 million contract.

Bryan Allen signs 3 year deal with Anaheim
One of the top defenceman on the market agreed to a 3 year deal worth $10 million with the Ducks.
He will be joining veteran Sheldon Souray who signed a 3 year deal worth $11 million. 


Top names still available


Matt Carle- Played last season with the Flyers and is one of the top defenceman available after Suter. Carle was waiting till the end of the Suter/Parise sweepstakes to go to a team that missed out on them.
Alexander Semin- Still no word on where Semin will go, but much like Carle he wanted to wait until after the two big dogs were out of the way. 

Leaving the Capital

If their elimination from the second round of the Stanley Cup playoff wasn't tough enough, the Washington Capitals got word Monday they would be losing two of their players and their coach this off-season. Alexander Semin and Tomas Vokoun both came out and said they do not plan on returning to the Capitals, both, especially Vokoun, are expected to go to the KHL in Russian. While Dale Hunter came out and announced he was returning to London to be with his family, and resigned from his head coaching position.

Despite making it to the 7th game in the second round the season for the Capitals was yet another disappointment, anything less than a Stanley Cup meant the season was wasted. Lots of players including Semin had to make sacrifices this season under Hunter and clearly some weren't huge fans of the changes.

Semin on his way out:
Semin's agent announced on Monday that his client was going to try his hand at the free agency market, as he no longer felt the Capitals were the best fit for him.

"It just doesn't make any sense to him. He did the best he could under the circumstances and he earned his right to be a free agent. The club decided to change directions, Alex doesn't fit into that system obviously" - Alexander Semin's agent Mark Gandler.

The Capitals had told Semin to not expect anymore ice time next season if he were to resign with the Caps, he will not see time in the last minute of the game, nor when the team is shorthanded. Semin believes he is more valuable and versatile than that of a role player and can still be a superstar, and he has decided he wants to part ways with the Caps. Semin had become known as a player who didn't try hard to contribute to his teams success in the playoffs, but he stepped it up immensely in the playoffs this year but still was unable to produce when the Capitals needed him most.  As everyone knows Alexander Semin is Russian, and the Russians have started their own rival league the KHL, could Semin be loured away to join the KHL in his native land? He is heading to Russia for the World Championships, who knows what they'll be telling him to get him back to Russia! For the sake of the NHL hopefully Alexander Semin will stay!

Interesting twist:
On Tuesday Semin came out and said he has no plans on leaving Washington, and the media twisted the situation into something it's not. It's been less than 24 hours since his agent told ESPN that Semin will test free agency, but apparently that decision hasn't been made yet!

"This is all just talk. Words can get twisted. There was not talk at all that I am not going to sign with the Capitals for sure. I have not talked to them (the Capitals) about leaving. And please don't ask me questions about next season anymore."

Wow, talk about drama in Washington! Now it comes down to will he stay or will he go? The countdown to July 1 is on.

Dale Hunter Leaving:
 On Monday Dale Hunter also came out and said he was stepping down from his head coaching duties with the Washington Capitals, to return home and be with his family.

"I'm going home. I've got a good thing going there with the family, so I'll stay home"

Home, with his family is where Hunter wants to be. He is the co-owner of the London Knights (with his brother), his son is one of the assistant coaches, and his brother is holding down the head coaching job with the Knights while Dale was in Washington. Not to mention the London Knights are on their way to the Memorial Cup! Although he later came out and said he will not be behind the bench with the Knights right away, you know he'll be there watching every move the team makes. Hunter is a very smart businessman, he knows he'd make more money with the London Knights especially if they win the Memorial Cup. OHLer's are easier to coach, they don't have huge ego's and contracts they're still waiting to make it big and they are happy with any role they're given.

With Hunter's departure it brings back the discussion of Alexander Ovechkin being a coach killer. He was pretty instrumental in tuning out Bruce Broudreau and getting him axed. Since Ovechkin entered the league in 2005 the Capitals have undergone 3 coaching changes, Dale Hunter being the shortest after only staying for half a season. Every coach that's tried to alter Ovechkin's game seems to find his way out of Washington one way or another. If the Capitals go through too many more coaching changes it could be time for Washington to ship Ovechkin out of town!

Whatever the reason or motivation behind Dale Hunter leaving the Capitals, he did it in a very admirable and classy way. Stepping down politely and not pointing fingers or passing blame on anyone, and if we can take the man at his word; he just wants to be with his family!

Tomas Vokoun leaving:
The final bullet shot at the Capitals on Monday was Tomas Vokoun saying he will not be returning as the Capitals goalie next season, and after the way Brayden Holtby played who would come back?

"I wasn't planning on being back here anyways. So for me, a situation like that, I'm happy for him. For me, it was never my intention to be here more than a year."

There are talks that Vokoun will head over to the KHL to join the Lokomotiv Yaroslavl to help them rebuild after the horrific plane crash that killed the whole team in Russian. His best friend Josef Vasicek was one of the players who died in the plane crash. There is no official deal done that will send Vokoun over to the Lokomotiv, but if he can't find work in the NHL he may be gone.

Monday was a pretty tough day for the Capitals; losing 1 player, possibly losing another and losing a coach. All decisions were made right after the Capitals elimination from the playoffs, some were probably made a little too quickly but right now the Capitals are in a tail spin.
Who knows who else they may lose once July 1 comes around!

Benching Ovechkin

Everyone knows that Alexander Ovechkin is a top tier player in the NHL and arguably one of the top 5 players in the world. Normally when you have a player with the skill sets like Ovechkin you want him on the ice the majority of the night right? Not in Washington! Since Dale Hunter took over the coaching job for the Capitals he has given Ovi a back seat role and surprisingly the Capitals are winning!

Hunter's benching of his big players (Semin, Backstrom, Ovechkin) has gotten a lot of attention in the media. Now normally this works for a few games, then the team starts to lose and the coach freaks out and goes back to playing his stars, but that won't happen with Hunter. A part from the fact that Hunter has quite a backbone, he really doesn't care if he loses his coaching job with the Capitals and that's due to his lifetime position in the OHL. Hunter is the co-owner of the London Knights major junior hockey club, where he coached the team for 11 seasons before getting the call to come in to Washington. So unlike the majority of NHL coaches who really don't want to lose their jobs and be out of work for a couple seasons, Dale Hunter has his job already set for him back with the Knights.
Anytime you have a coach that isn't really afraid of getting fired (or could walk away on their own at the end of a season) it's a Catch-22 scenerio. They can light a fire under their star players and get them playing well or things can go completely down hill and the players can just quit on the coach.

Most coaches wouldn't dream about benching Ovechkin or cutting back his ice time, but that's what Hunter is doing in Washington with Ovechkin playing just 13:36 in the last game his all time lowest for a playoff ice game. It's even more rare when a role player like Jay Beagle plays 19:36 and has 10 more shifts than your superstar! But the Capitals are winning and maybe that's just what they need to win playoff games, they are 6-2 in the playoffs when the great 8 plays less than 20 minutes a night, so if it's helping them win who cares?

The Capitals have failed to reach the 3rd round of the playoffs in the last 4 seasons, in each of those past years Ovechkin was averaging 23-25 minutes a night. Dale Hunter was brought in to change their playoff luck and what better way to do that then completely changing Ovechkin's role and ice time? Why stop at just Ovechkin's ice time, Backstrom played just 16:18 in the last game while Semin played a career low 12:27. But perhaps the most remarkable thing to come out of all this reduced ice time, is the fact Dale Hunter is turning Ovechkin into a team player. If you look at the captains reaction after teammate Jay Beagle scored the other night you can see that he is starting to really get happy for his teammates when they have success as well. Sure he wants more ice time (If he didn't there would be a problem) but right now he's playing a team game.

Most people remember the Capitals playoffs of late being barn burner type of games where 5 goals are scored and you win 5-4 or 7-5 but now the Capitals are starting to play the close one goal games which secretly Hunter prefers. He likes to keep the game at 0-0 for as long as possible and play for the one shot win! Which is why players like Ovechkin and Semin are seeing so little ice time, he doesn't trust them to play his style of close knit hockey!

Who knows if Hunter will return next season as the coach of the Washington Capitals, a large part of that will be based on whether he really wants to stay at the NHL with the divas or go back to the OHL where he can do whatever he wants and not be questioned. But one thing's for sure he's doing things his way, whether the Capitals win or lose he's making sure it's done his way! But if the Capitals wind up losing to the Rangers (I think they will) then it will be interesting to see what old Hunter has to say about his "benching" Ovechkin strategy!

What you Need to Know!

Hello readers and blogger's alike! TODAY IS FRIDAY! I'm going to be talking about some of the stories that took place this week, but were not worthy of a blog of their own. This will most likely become a normal Friday blog, "What you need to know." This blog will consist of a whole bunch of little stories from around the NHL.
Here we go.....

First we start things off with the Toronto Maple Leafs; earlier this week we heard from back-up goaltender Jonas Gustavsson, and he is feeling much healthier than previous seasons and how expects to be a series contender in the leafs carousel of goaltenders. Early last season he was expected to be the leafs no.1 goaltender, but due poor play and injury, he lost the job to Jean-Sebastian Giguere. After the loss of the number one job he got sent down to the AHL Marlies to see if he could stay healthy and step his game up. Gustavsson has gone through a total of 3 heart surgeries, to repair an irregular heart beat. it is expected this season that Gustavsson will be the back up to unlikely hero James Reimer. Reimer was called up near the end of the season and had quite an impressive stint with the big boys, even winning the number 1 job away from season veteran Jean-Sebastian Giguere. Gustavsson is sure he can help young rookie Reimer in his development as well as help the team overall.“That's my goal. To push him and [have him] push me and to do whatever I can to make this team better.”The leafs are in a tough division for goaltenders, that includes the likes of; Miller, Price, Brodeur, Thomas and Lundqvist, they need the young tandem of Reimer and Gustavsson to step up and keep them around in the East. the one part of the puzzle that has been lacking for the Leafs is goaltending, they have a respectable bunch of forwards lead by Kessle and a stellar defense that any team would want lead by Phaneuf and Schenn, now it comes down to the goaltending. So the question remains can Reimer and Gustavsson match the goaltending caliber of a Ryan Miller or Tim Thomas? we'll have to wait and see.

next up is a report that surfaced from a former Washington Capital; Matt Bradley. After a total of 6 seasons with the Capitals, Bradley had some choice words for his former team and teammates. bradley insisted that the team just didn't show up in the playoffs, because a few key members didn't really care. "I think our locker room was maybe a little bit too nonchalant, and guys weren't disciplined the way they should have been," Bradely told TEAM 1200. "Those two things are big things. It wasn't that guys were going out the night before a game, but not being ready to practice or missing practice with questionable injuries and not being focused."IS THIS IT? HAS MATT BRADLEY FIGURED OUT WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE WASHINGTON CAPITALS COME PLAYOFFS? no! this is Bradley lashing out that he is not apart of a Stanley Cup contending team anymore. Bradley is now a member of the Florida Panthers, does anyone remember their last chance at coming close to a cup? I do believe there is some truth to his argument though, some of the players don't giver their full effort during the post season. who are those players? lets ask Bradly;
"I don't mind saying Alexander Semin's name because he's one guy who has so much talent, he could easily be the best player in the league, and for whatever reason just doesn't care," Bradley said. "When you've got a guy like that you need him to be your best player, or one of your best players, and when he doesn't show up, you almost get the sense that he wants to be back in Russia. That's tough to win when you've got a guy like that who's supposed to be your best player not being your best player. Or one of your best players." HMMM I wonder why Bradley left the Capitals... making some enemies around town. Although it is no suprise that Alexander Semin does not care, everyone in the sports world can see this, they talked about it all playoffs long, it aint rocket science! Bradley even went as far as criticizing the coaching decision to give star players more ice time :o There were a lot of guys who played well that didn't probably play as much as they needed to, but I love Bruce (Boudreau) and Bruce is a great coach and he was in a very tough position there, because in Washington our top guys are definitely the stars and the guys that people want to see on the ice, so I totally understand," Bradley said. "That just doesn't happen on our team, it happens on a lot of teams. hmmm here is a random thought; maybe fans buy tickets to see star players, not 4th line players that ride the bench all game and score 3 important goals all season long. The fans want to see the Ovechkins and Semins that why they come out to the games! surprisingly enough Bradley had nothing bad to say about Ovechkin!
"I never worry about Ovi," he said. "He's an all-in guy. He's young; he makes his mistakes the same as anyone would. I often try to put myself in his position. And you've got to remember, he's 25 years old, he's got a guaranteed $120 million, he's on top of the world, and he still for the most part makes the right decisions."
good idea Bradley never criticize the captain of the team you just left! Bradley finished the post season with 3 goals and 8 assists, while Semin had 12 goals and 18 assists! Bradley needs to grow up and maybe contribute more to his team, oh wait he's sitting on the bench all game, my bad!

Next we move on to a story that literally just came in! Chris Drury is announcing his retirement from the NHL! Drury is the former captain of the New York Rangers! Drury, who turns 35 on Saturday, had the final year of his US$35.25-million contract bought out by the Rangers in June after four seasons with club. Drury had a rough season last year with many nagging injuries, thus resulting in 1 goal  and 4 assists in only 24 game. Drury has almost done it all, after getting drafted by the Quebec Nordiques in 1994, he won a Stanley Cup with the Colorado Avalanche in 2001 and took part in the 2002 and 2010 Mens Olympic ice hockey team for the United States, both times winning a silver medal. Drury finishes with totals of 255 goals and 360 assists in 892 career-regular season games with Colorado, Calgary, Buffalo and the Rangers.

And our last story is; The new Jersey Devils Travis Zajac will miss the start of the 2011-2012 season. Zajac is expected to miss 8 to 10 weeks while recovering from a surgery to repair his left Achilles tendon. Zajac is entering his 6th NHL season and has spent all 6 years with the Devil's, he is a key part of the organization and a very good role player. Zajac has put up points to help back up his nasty swagger; He is New Jersey all-time ironman, with a consecutive games played streak of 401, Zajac had 13 goals and 31 assists in 82 games with the Devils last season. In 408 career NHL games, the 26-year-old recorded 89 goals and 160 assists.

thank you for reading this Friday blog, Sorry it went a little long, but I hope you enjoyed it :D just quickly in closing the Toronto Maple leafs are getting close to a deal with defence man Luke Schenn. Schenn is a Restricted Free Agent, and can basically not leave the Leafs. Nonis  the Senior Vice-President of Hockey Operations of the leafs expects there to be a deal done by the start of training camp. Stating that Schenn wants to resign and remain a Leaf. Also Steven Stamkos will grace the cover of EA's NHL 12.
Have a good weekend!