The Official NHL Thread

[Alex Mogilny]

Originally posted by Va Beach VH Fan
"Cancer man" ?? Damn, that's pretty cold dude....

You probably don't consider undergoing two months of radiation treatment, finishing one morning, flying to Philadelphia, and scoring for the Pens in the same day, is a feat, but you have to admit, not a bad day's work...

Oh yeah, he came back to win the Art Ross Trophy again that year, with 160 points.... Not bad for the Cancer man, huh ??

I'm sure Mogilny will be putting up those numbers this year, for whoever wants him that is....

You take it out of context....I meant it in a super hero kind of way....lose that edge, it's a little sharp.

[Full Bug]

Further proof Toronto is the center of the hockey universe!

New Toronto Hockey Camp For Fetuses Attracts Hundreds of Expectant Mothers

A hockey camp for pregnant women, or more specifically for the children that they're carrying, has opened in Toronto. Enrollment levels at the new Toronto District Pre-Natal Hockey School have exceeded expectations, according to the camp's organizer and chief instructor, Carlos O'Heffernan.

"People want to make sure their children get every opportunity possible. I think that's why we have so many students enrolled," said O'Heffernan, a self-described hockey expert and former Junior 'D' centerman who once recorded a hat trick in a Cobourg beer league game 11 years ago. "We have couples who haven't even conceived yet who are putting down deposits to get on the waiting list. With all of the money in the pro game, can you blame them?"

At his Pre-Natal hockey school, O'Heffernan puts the unborn children through all of the paces.

"Just because they're not born yet, that doesn't mean we baby them. Hockey's a hard, gruelling game. The sooner they learn that, the better off they'll be in the long run."

"But look at someone like Sidney Crosby-he started skating when he was three-way too late. That's three lost years!
O'Heffernan spitting out reasons why it's necessary to start them off young.
Drills at the school include motivational yelling at the mothers' stomachs, in-class instructional sessions on modern defensive systems, as well as tutorials on effective forechecking techniques in the ultrasound room.

"The modern game is so complicated, it's imperative that we teach them as soon as possible. If you wait to educate them on the complexities of the left-wing lock after they've been born, they won't be able to grasp all of it, even when they're 18.

"Yes, the kids aren't wearing skates yet, and we can't really get them out on the ice, but we can put them through some...dry land training...as such, get them ready, so when they pop out, they'll be ready to be driven straight to the rink to begin their skating drills."

Some whiny, visor-wearing Euro-lovers have raised concerns about whether fetuses are ready for the rigours of an eight-week long hockey camp. "This whole hockey camp for yet-to-be-born children is well, uhm, absolutely ridiculous," said Ivan Goodcanadianboy, President of Hockey Canada and the overlord of minor hockey in Canada. "Studies have shown that children should not be skating until they are at least three months old. These fetuses don't have the muscular development to be doing two-a-day workouts, I don't care what anyone tells you."


O'Heffernan bristled at the suggestion that his students aren't physically mature enough for hockey camp. "Hey, we're not crazy here-you have to be in your second trimester. They can't learn anything if it's any sooner than that.

"But look at someone like Sidney Crosby-he started skating when he was three-way too late. That's three lost years! These days, you gotta start them out before they get out. You're foolish if you don't! Otherwise, they won't be fully prepared and conditioned for the rigours of the 75-game schedule of house league PeeWee hockey," added O'Heffernan, who indicated that he plans to expand his business to Smiths Falls.

Parents attending O'Heffernan's school that our reporter pestered in the parking lot explained their motivations. "Isn't little baby gonna grow up to score 50 goals and build mommy and daddy a nice cottage in the Muskokas? Isn't he? Isn't he?" asked Henry Jacobsen, an investment banker from Markham whose wife is pregnant with their first child. "This is way more useful than those stupid lamaze classes."

Jane Garnerson, 25, wasn't quite so enthusiastic as she walked out of class. "Personally, I think this is quite...silly," admitted Garnerson. "But my boyfriend was quite adamant that I do this. Oh well...as long as he...or she, is having fun, I guess."

Nigel and Yolanda Bicklethwaite of Etobicoke said that they enrolled at the O'Heffernan Pre-Natal hockey school out of a desire for their forthcoming baby boy to experience life to its fullest.

"We want our little baby to enjoy every opportunity we never did," explained Nigel, a postal clerk who was "this close" to making his Bantam 'B' rep team when he was 15. "And if that kid doesn't make it to the NHL, he's out of the fucking will."

[Romeo Delight]

Hilarious Full Bug!!

[Full Bug]

Gotta teach'em early, fully endorsed by Don Cherry!....

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Originally posted by Alex Mogilny
You take it out of context....I meant it in a super hero kind of way....lose that edge, it's a little sharp.

Oh, in that case, that's cool... It didn't sound that way, hence the sharpness...

I do admit, I do defend Lemieux a lot nowadays...

It seems now that he is in his last few years before retirement, the self-proclaimed hockey "experts" (probably some of the same people that profess that hockey revolves around Toronto) have Gretzky so head-and-shoulders above Lemieux....

While the numbers for Gretzky don't lie, there are so many "what-ifs" during Lemieux's career, who knows what numbers he would end up with had he been healthy...

Here's my latest theory...

Do you think a reason that the "experts" think this way is because Gretzky was a "Torontian", while Lemieux was from "Montreal" ???

[Va Beach VH Fan]

Poj, sorry for stealing your adjective...

But it's downright shocking what the Penguins are doing...

I'm having a hard time with the lines....

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story.asp?id=133574

Penguins sign free agent winger LeClair

Associated Press

8/15/2005 4:32:28 PM

PITTSBURGH (AP) - John LeClair probably wouldn't have given a thought a few weeks ago to joining a last-place team like the Pittsburgh Penguins. Sidney Crosby, Ziggy Palffy, Sergei Gonchar and Jocelyn Thibault changed his thinking.

John LeClair, let go by the Philadelphia Flyers in the first wave of NHL salary dumping last month, signed a two-year contract Monday with Pittsburgh - the Penguins' fifth major player addition in slightly more than two weeks.

LeClair adds another established scorer to a radically reshaped team that finished last in the overall 2003-04 standings but now has the look of a playoff team after acquiring offensive-minded defenseman Gonchar, the high-scoring Palffy, goaltender Thibault and drafting top prospect Crosby. The team also signed another former Flyers star, Mark Recchi, before the labour dispute shut down the 2004-05 season.

General manager Craig Patrick, who needed only 2½ weeks to reconfigure a team coming off three consecutive losing seasons, said the Penguins likely wouldn't have got LeClair without adding the other pieces.

''Definitely, in John's case,'' Patrick said Monday. ''It's very special to get these kind of people - not just great players, but great people in the locker-room.''

Perhaps more than any other NHL team, the Penguins have turned the economic advantages afforded smaller-market clubs by the new NHL labour agreement - especially the salary cap - into their advantage. They spent most of the last three seasons dumping players such as Jaromir Jagr, Robert Lang and Alex Kovalev because they couldn't afford to keep them.

''We were positioned well for what we had to deal with, and it's worked out very well,'' Patrick said. ''For the first time around in this, it was hard to really anticipate what might happen, but we're very, very pleased.''

LeClair, 36, not only is one of the NHL's top goal scorers over the last nine season, the six-foot-three, 225-pound forward adds a physical presence to a team that badly needed one during three consecutive losing seasons from 2001-04. The five-time all-star has 382 goals and 379 assists for 761 points in 873 career games.

''John is a big, strong winger who is a proven and consistently productive goal-scorer,'' Patrick said. ''His presence further strengthens the group of forwards we're assembling here in Pittsburgh.''

LeClair spent 10 years with the Flyers, part of them as the left wing on the ''Legion of Doom'' line with Eric Lindros and Mikael Renberg in the mid-1990s. He was to have made $9 million US in 2004-05 in the final year of a five-year contract, or $6.84 million after the leaguewide 24 per cent rollback, but was bought out for a reported $4.56 million. LeClair and Tony Amonte were let go by the Flyers on July 23.

''It was something I was prepared for,'' LeClair said at the time. ''I knew it was a very realistic possibility for over a year now. My disappointment comes from knowing my years with the Flyers are over.''

Since the Penguins last played in April 2004, they have added two of the Flyers' top three scorers from that season - Recchi, who led the team with 26 goals and 75 points, and LeClair, who was third with 55 points on 23 goals and 32 assists.

The Penguins had the league's smallest payroll - and lowest attendance - in 2003-04, but now figure to be in the middle range of salaries at about $32 million. Their finances also improved appreciably after they drafted Crosby, causing a stampede for tickets that could lead to nearly every home game being sold out.

Also Monday, the Penguins signed former Capitals and Blackhawks defenceman Steve Poapst and avoided contract arbitration with defenceman Josef Melichar, who agreed to a two-year deal that will pay him $700,00 this season. He has three goals and 10 assists in 168 career games.

The 36-year-old Poapst has only eight goals in 245 NHL games but often provides a tough matchup for opposing forwards and is strong on the penalty-killing unit.

Centre Matt Hussey and left-winger Guillaume Lefebvre also accepted the Penguins' qualifying offers.

[ALinChainz]

Monday's NHL Moves

August 15, 2005


(CP) - Anaheim Mighty Ducks sign defenceman Mark Popovic.

Boston Bruins sign centres Brad Boyes, Ben Guite and Nate Robinson, wingers Eric Healey and Jason MacDonald, and defencemen Kevin Dallman and Jonathan Sigalet.

Buffalo Sabres sign Jochen Hecht, Daniel Briere, J.P. Dumont, Maxim Afinogenov, Henrik Tallinder, Tim Connolly, Milan Bartovic, Ales Kotalik, Jason Pominville, Paul Gaustad and Michael Ryan.

Calgary Flames sign forwards Eric Nystrom, Curtis McElhinney, Chuck Kobasew, Matthew Lombardi and Brandon Prust.

Carolina Hurricanes sign winger Pavel Brendl.

Columbus Blue Jackets sign defenceman Rostislav Klesla, goaltender Pascal Leclaire and wingers Tim Jackman and Brandon Sugden.

Dallas Stars sign forwards Jason Arnott, Antti Miettinen, Garrett Burnett and Mike Siklenka.

Edmonton Oilers sign winger Ales Hemsky and defenceman Matt Greene.

Los Angeles Kings sign defencemen Joe Corvo and Brad Fast.

Minnesota Wild sign defenceman Daniel Tjarnqvist.

Montreal Canadiens sign forward Saku Koivu.

Ottawa Senators sign forwards Chris Kelly and Brian McGrattan.

Phoenix Coyotes sign forwards Krystofer Kolanos and Jeff Taffe.

Pittburgh Penguins sign forwards John LeClair and Matt Murley and defencemen Josef Melichar and Steve Poapst.

St. Louis Blues sign forwards Jamal Mayers and Peter Sejna and defencemen Eric Brewer and defenceman Brett Scheffelmaier.

San Jose Sharks sign fowards Patrick Marleau and Marco Sturm.

Vancouver Canucks sign defenceman Sami Salo.

Washington Capitals sign forwards Brian Sutherby, Graham Mink, Stephen Peat, Brian Willsie, defencemen Brendan Witt, Steve Eminger, Shaone Morrisonn, Nolan Yonkman and goaltender Maxime Ouellet.

http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/news?slug=cp-nhl_moves&prov=cp&type=lgns

[POJO_Risin]

Fuck Va...they signed fucking John LeClair...

you have got to be kidding me...

okay...I'm officially going to watch...

I'm in utter fucking shock to be honest...

[Romeo Delight]

Leclair is a killer!!!

Insanity!!!

[POJO_Risin]

It's still hard to fathom that the Pens were able to do all this based on the Crosby signing...coinciding with the new cap...really hard to fucking believe...and they are going to be at 32 million this year...

lmfao...Christ...Lemieux almost made that a season...well...they didn't pay him...lmfao...but he woulda made that...instead...they had to give him the team...

[Romeo Delight]

Shoot-out!

What about the new tie-breaker?

I think the players may take off helmets for this (is this true?)

Will non-hockey markets (Nashville, Columbus, et all) now identify more with sport?

Could be good for regular season games...

Discuss!!!

[Va Beach VH Fan]

And they're STILL not done... Selected snippets from the PG...

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05228/554653.stm

Penguins continue to make big plays
Five-time All-Star LeClair joins team
Tuesday, August 16, 2005

By Chuck Finder, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Penguins general manager Craig Patrick continues to play disc jockey to the tune of the NHL's new Collective Bargaining Agreement, spinning the hits. Yesterday's selection was something of a golden oldie, five-time All-Star left winger John LeClair, 36, the same age as depth defenseman Steve Poapst, who signed a couple of hours later.

Another addition to the Penguins' playlist may come today, or someday soon: Slovak center Jozef Stumpel, 33.

And just like that, in 13 days, X-Generation kids have given way to Me-Generation alums.

If nothing else, all these thirty-something free-agent newcomers -- namely LeClair, right winger Ziggy Palffy, 33, and potentially Stumpel, Palffy's pal -- may mean that a couple of previous Penguins regulars get X-ed out: winger Aleksey Morozov and center Milan Kraft.

Both imported forwards, along with homegrown defenseman Brooks Orpik, remain the most prominent names among the unsigned Penguins properties. Each was given a qualifying offer in the summer of 2004, a maneuver that under the new CBA makes each a free agent whom any other team could sign, with compensation. So far, Orpik's camp seems to hold the most optimism about returning to the Penguins.

"I want to [sign], but I don't have anything from Pittsburgh. I've heard absolutely nothing," Morozov, 28, signed to play a second Russian season with Ak Bars Kazan, said yesterday of talks the past week or so between his agent, Jay Grossman, and Patrick. When the two sides previously chatted, added Morozov, who was the second-leading scorer (50 points) for the 2003-04 Penguins, "everything was OK. They want me back. Blah, blah, blah. I haven't heard anything else.

"What's going on with this year, I don't know. I have to talk to my agent, what's going to be better for me, what we can do in this situation."

Kraft, 25, who was second in goals (19) in 2003-04, wouldn't appear to fit into their plans if Stumpel signs. Kraft and Morozov are players who were tendered qualifying offers of $1 million-plus in 2004 but declined them, making those contracts worth significantly less with the 24-percent CBA rollback and depreciation amid Patrick's free-agent flurry. Also, both are former first-round picks who developed slowly for a team that suddenly finds itself with a glut of top-line speed and scorers, young and old: first-overall selection Sidney Crosby, Ryan Malone, Konstantin Koltsov, 2004 free-agent signee Mark Recchi, owner-player Mario Lemieux, and August acquisitions Palffy and LeClair, who signed a two-year, front-loaded deal averaging about $1.8 million in the salary cap. Of Kraft and Morozov, Patrick remained noncommittal yesterday: "We'll see what they're talking about, go through that process with them."

Center Evgeni Malkin still remains something of a Penguins possibility, though the Russian federation's refusal to sign the International Ice Hockey Federation transfer agreement may preclude the Penguins from reeling in their 2004 second overall pick across the Atlantic Ocean, let alone the Baltic Sea, this season.

Not that Patrick is taking this time to snooze away: "We're still trying to work the system here and make it work for us." Certainly, he had a hectic Monday, signing:

Josef Melichar, 26, a 6-foot-2, 220-pound defenseman who is the only returning Penguins player to have endured all 82 games of 2003-04, his minus-17 rating the lowest among the club's regular blue-liners. Melichar was scheduled for arbitration, but agreed to skip it by signing a two-year contract paying him $700,000 this year and $750,000 the next.

Forwards Matt Hussey, 26, Guillaume Lefebvre, 24, and Matt Murley, 25, signed two-way contracts worth $450,000 at the NHL level, but paying a fraction of that in the minors. Several other players were expected to sign and get in under last night's deadline for accepting qualifying offers -- after which time the Penguins could conceivably sign them at a lesser rate.

Poapst, 6 feet, 199 pounds, a former Capitals player, AHL Portland Hall of Fame and most recently Chicago defenseman who played on the Blackhawks along with Penguins coach Eddie Olczyk, was signed at a low-cost contract, likely around $500,000.

LeClair, 6-3, 226 pounds, the 10th thirty-something player on the Penguins' roster, is believed to have similarly signed a bargain-basement deal for this season after receiving a $4.56 million buyout from the Flyers a month ago. If indeed Poapst and LeClair came at a combined $2 million cost, that would bring the Penguins' payroll this season near $21 million for 18 front-line players, with Lemieux, Crosby plus a few others yet to sign and a $31 million-or-so cap well within reach.

Patrick, who in the past fortnight also delivered defenseman Sergei Gonchar, tough guy Andre Roy and goalie Jocelyn Thibault, considers an aging LeClair still a power-play threat and a first- or second-line presence. Once the league's consummate power forward, LeClair had three 50-goal and two 40-goal seasons in a row, though none recently. He rang up 25 goals in a full 2001-02 season, 18 goals in just 35 games the next year and 23 goals in 75 games when the NHL previously competed, when Recchi was a linemate.

LeClair had back surgery in May, his third such procedure since 2000. He also had shoulder surgery in 2002-03. Yet Patrick said all reports came back with a healthy verdict.

[Va Beach VH Fan]

By the way, they interviewed Edzo last night...

Here was a rough draft of the Power Play lines...

PP1
Leclair-Lemieux-Recchi
Gonchar-Tarnstrom

PP2
Malone-Crosby-Palffy
Jackman-Melichar

Adding Stumpel and/or Malkin may replace Malone on the 2nd line, just my opinion....

That'll work.... Shit, interchange at will among those two lines...

[guwapo_rocker]

Lecavalier signs long-term deal with Tampa

8/16/2005 3:21:17 PM

TAMPA BAY, Fla. (CP) - The Tampa Bay Lightning have locked up star player Vincent Lecavalier for the next four years by signing the talented sniper to a long term contract.

NHL sources have told TSN it's a four-year deal at $6.8 million US a year.

Lecavalier had 32 goals and 34 assists and was plus-24 in 81 games with the Lightning in 2003-04. He had nine goals and seven assists in 23 playoff games en route to winning the Stanley Cup.

Tampa Bay made Lecavalier the first overall pick in 1998 and he has played his entire career with the Lightning. The six-foot-four, 205-pound forward from Ile-Bizard, Que., has 146 goals and 181 assists in 467 career games.

He was a restricted free agent and, instead of taking a one-year qualifying offer and entering unrestricted free agency next year at the age of 26, he opted to sign a long-term deal with his team.

Lecavalier played last season with the Russian team Ak Bars Kazan during the NHL lockout and scored seven goals and nine assists in 30 games.




So much for teams like the leafs scooping up guys like this next summer huh??

Good job boys.


Link

[Romeo Delight]

A funny team Canada story.

Brendan Morrison of the Canucks (plays with Bert and Naslund) was recently added to the Team Canada camp (held in Vancouver/Whistler)by Gretz - as Lemieux is busy snatching up every available free agent.

His own teammate Jovonaski, approached him at the team dinner to ask him what he was doing there. Morrison responded by twlling him he had been invited.

Jovo's reply: "To dinner?"

Brendan: "No, to the camp!"

Imagine what everyone was thinking...what is he doing here???