shrader

I don’t think there’d be any more risk than the current icing rule.

So let me get this straight, Carolina doesn’t want to pay someone? Shocking. And a backloaded contract? I had no idea any teams actually did that at this point. Everyone’s always getting their money up front. Looking at how his contract is structured, how on earth did he agree to that?

This whole thing has me toying with the idea of only allowing line changed while the game is ongoing. It’s probably a bit too extreme, but it’s an interesting one. I’ll probably settle back on my thought for a while of not allowing a change after any rule violation. Icing, offside, and the big one... penalties. Just imagine the chaos of having to start a PK situation with three forwards and on D. And then the rare case where both defensemen take a penalty at the same time...

And speaking of that guy who I refuse to mention. How is it, after all these years, people are still visiting that website and mentioning his made up rumors? You want to go there for laughs, ok, but come on, the guy was debunked almost 15 years ago at this point.

Ahhh, I misread the deadline. It's next week, not this week.

Is there something more than just the quote in the twitter post? I don't necessarily read that one as "it's my last year". Or maybe it's because I haven't seen Major League in ages.

Has any info about the other RFAs gotten out at all? Qualifying all of the NHL-level guys (and Smith) really wasn't earth shattering news, but I'd be curious to see if they did choose to let any of the others walk (except Brycen Martin, that one seems kind of obvious).

Apparently Thurman Thomas was in my town today for his kid’s baseball game. I should go find him.

Both sides get what they want. He still gets paid and the team gets some financial freedom. Why would they want to change anything?

Berglund really missed an opportunity with his departure.

They got rid of Davis Payne.

Every league has that guy. The comments from random source in the Q trying to poach college committed kids are an annual right of passage.

I wish we could somehow quantify how much more a star-level player actually gets from endorsements in a market like Toronto. I suggest that it significantly hedges the bet he made with less term, especially if you're comparing it to a market like, say, Phoenix. But still, I wish we could get some sense on how much more that brings.

That should be a fun one to watch in the developmental camp. He's the exact kind of player you'd like to see show up as a man among boys now that he's one year removed from his draft.

July 1st is NHL new year's day.

I just heard a conversation on the radio yesterday about how they're lowballing everyone. Neither goalie is exactly a world beater, but they're both going to walk because the owner refuses to pay anything. But hey, they can always call Scott Darling back up. They'll get it done with Aho, but it'll be interesting to see how long it takes and if as a result, he decides to go short term. That cheapskate act is going to rub players the wrong way. Hell, they're currently lowballing John Forslund (not that I can stand the guy) and he's been calling their games since the Hartford days. They did it last year with their radio guy who had been with the organization even longer than Forslund, and he walked.

Carolina is a bunch of cheap bastards. Skinner was probably well aware that he was gone after the contract no matter what happened. They weren't going to pay him. So if you have to relocate the family in a year anyway, why not roll the dice and do it early?

The deal is a non-starter if they can't reacquire Youppi! from the Habs.

And he'd actually have to want to sign that deal with the theoretical team that offers it. Even if he knows Toronto automatically will match it, he's probably still not going to run the slight risk of winding up in Columbus if he has an unnatural fear of cannon blasts. And the other thing we're missing in this discussion of "he'd be crazy not to take that deal" is that Toronto could possibly be playing games with how it's structured. The classic example right now is the so called lockout protection. Is that something they're not including right now? I'm sure we can come up with a long list of possibilities for why it's not as straight forward as $11 million/year, 8 years.

Carolina is probably one of those teams that does have an idiot GM though, given his history. I'm not completely sure if he had that job though when the deal was made. That organization is a bit of a circus.

Since they obviously can't release a real live bat, Pegula needs to invest some money into inventing a life-like robot bat. They should also invest in a robot Jim Lorentz, just in case they can't lure the real one away from the fishing boat.

Do you know how many of the teams are NHL-owned vs. independent ownership? I'd love to see that number, but I get the impression that it leans towards the former at this point.

4 darts? Well at least he's willing to cheat. We can work with that.

The thought of having an entire effective line out there with a combined price tag south of $5 million is an appealing one. I don't know who the third piece winds up being, but the Zemgus/Larsson combo will barely top a combined $3 million. It's pocket change at this point.

Every so often people like to suggest songs for the on ice intro. To this day, there is no better fit than the sabre dance and this anniversary is the perfect time to use nothing but that. Now I know that @SDS likes to chime in saying that kids today don't like the old stuff (and I agree), but I'd hope he'd look the other way on this one.