New England Hockey Talk

[MGB Boy]

Quote: Originally Posted by bethandlouis (original)

Although I hate the Rangers, if I was a hockey player I'd want to play with them. Are they like the Yankees? 51.5 million for Gomez and 35.25 for Drury that's some serious money. I knew that Buffalo was going to lose all the 'good' players. If they were going to win the cup this year was the year to do it. Nearly everyone is up for free agency. Nice to see Philly get some good players...wait did I just say that what I meant to say is Flyers suck! I don't think that there was anyone on the Caps that was up for free agency (we shipped them all off before the trade deadline). But nice to see that we got Tom Poti and Viktor Koslov. A veteran D and a pretty good center. He'll probably be put on the line with Ovey and Semin (although I've heard rumors of them being split up and placed on different lines).

Nylander will be a great pick up for the Caps. The Bruins were idiots to let him go (as part of their doomed pre-lockout "let's have all our contracts expiring in 2004" scheme). I suspect the Rangers will live to regret it as well. He's sneaky/quiet good. He'll never get the flash or attention of a Jagr or a Thornton, but he's quietly put together 79 and 83 point seasons the last two years, second on the team behind only Jagr. And he was their leading playoff scorer, too. Nice pick-up.

Quote: Originally Posted by bethandlouis (original)

I knew that Islander-nation wasn't going to be able to keep Smyth plus they lose Blake. Hopefully the Rick can score some goals too because they're going to need him to man up. It's a sad day on Strong Island.

Don't worry. The Rick will get 50 goals this season.

Quote: Originally Posted by bethandlouis (original)

Ha Ha you have to pay attention to the Blueland people and the 'high-flying Atlanta Thrashers' [points and laughs]

See, you're a glass half empty type of person. I look at it this way; In the blink of an eye, I just became the most hockey-saavy person Atlanta has watching their games. I mean really, among their fanbase, who really knows anything about hockey? I'm the King of Blueland. I rock.

Quote: Originally Posted by bethandlouis (original)

No word on Lang yet? I know that Detroit is shopping him.

No, but apparently Bertuzzi has signed with the Ducks. I guess the logic is "hey, we won a Cup even though we played undisciplined and took stupid penalties. Maybe that was the key, let's stock up on undisciplined guys who take stupid penalties!"

Quote: Originally Posted by bethandlouis (original)

So even though Boston re-signed Ms. Finland they are still shopping him? Seems strange are these contracts not guaranteed? or are they and they looking for someone to just take him for what they paid him?

NHL contracts are guaranteed money. I'm really not sure why they signed him. Maybe as an insurance policy just in case A) Tuuka didn't come over, and B) they couldn't get anyone on the free agent market. But word on the street is he could move more easily than Timmy, because although he's a worse goalie than Timmy, he's also cheaper (by about $600K a season) and younger (and there's always someone out there who thinks "hey, he's got great potential").

What a day. Supposedly I was "on vacation" today (today being Monday, if I'm still up then it's still the day before), but I was at work from noon to 6pm, left to go have dinner and play hockey, then came back to work again from 1am until, well, whatever the hell time it is now. Lovely. Needless to say I'll be updating the Vacation Planner Tool and de-listing 7/02 as a vacation day, stick that back in my pocket and use it some other time. So now I've got all my time off for the remainder of the year planned (the rest of this week, a wedding later in July, NHHG and British Invasion in September, a couple of half days for random things here and there, and 12/22/07 - 1/2/08 off) but I've still got 5.5 days off left over. Gotta use them somewhere, you're not allowed to rollover vacation time. I guess I'll take some long weekends this summer...

Great blog entry here that encapsulates how I feel better than I could.

-Ricardo

[bethandlouis]

They talked a little about the lack of coverage on ESPN on the hockey program they played on Sirius. i think they had someone from ESPN that they were interviewing. It seems that ESPN had no interest in keeping the NHL because they were headed for a lock-out. They were also citing the poor viewership that the NHL gets. i don't know if I condone the whole we're not gong to pay attention to hockey unless there is a huge dog pile in the middle of the highlight. Considering that the NHL is trying to do away with all the fighting. But just like Paris Hilton maybe bad press is better than no press. I've given up waiting for Sportscenter to replay the awesome shot that someone has taken and have gone to YouTube before turning on ESPN. I still don't understand how you can call NASCAR a sport. I don't think it's even really a game.

That sucks about your 'vacation'. Were you compelled to go in or forced?

The Caps will be unstoppable next year. Unless, someone stops them. I'm glad that they have recognized what positions they need to fill and are flling them. Better than, "Hey, these guys are on the market, let's get them too." What we need are Centers and Defensemen. And that's what they're out there getting. LET"S GO CAPS!

[bethandlouis]

Lang moved to Chicago for a 2 year $8 million dollar contract. So who's left in hockeytown under the age of 50?

[MGB Boy]

Quote: Originally Posted by bethandlouis (original)

Lang moved to Chicago for a 2 year $8 million dollar contract. So who's left in hockeytown under the age of 50?

That's why they brought in Rafalski. He's a relative spring-chicken at 33, and the plan is to suck the lifeforce out of his body and use it to sustain the old players. They're estimating that they could milk four old-timers thru one more season by draining Rafalski of his essence. Naturally, the effect on Rafalski will be fairly negative;



But still, you gotta do what you gotta do. It will be a season filled with touching locker room scenes such as this, with Dominic Hasek drawing power for another game by sucking down Rafalski's lifeforce...



-Ricardo

[MGB Boy]

Quote: Originally Posted by bethandlouis (original)

That sucks about your 'vacation'. Were you compelled to go in or forced?

Quasi-voluntary. Self preservation. First, some chuckleheads up the foodchain decided to make a project due on 7/3 despite the fact that 3/4ths of IBM takes July 4th week off (and worse yet, it's a project that is dependent on second quarter results, so you couldn't really do it early, you had to wait until the end of June). In doing my part, I came across a problem. I could have said "oh well" and submitted my results anyhow with the problem unaddressed, but then there would have been 10x the hassle next week. Better to put in a day now to fix it rather than deal with the consequences later. Oh well.

-Ricardo

[thomthumb]

Quote: Originally Posted by bethandlouis (original)

Lang moved to Chicago for a 2 year $8 million dollar contract. So who's left in hockeytown under the age of 50?

Quote: Originally Posted by MGB Boy (original)

That's why they brought in Rafalski. He's a relative spring-chicken at 33, and the plan is to suck the lifeforce out of his body and use it to sustain the old players. They're estimating that they could milk four old-timers thru one more season by draining Rafalski of his essence. Naturally, the effect on Rafalski will be fairly negative;



But still, you gotta do what you gotta do. It will be a season filled with touching locker room scenes such as this, with Dominic Hasek drawing power for another game by sucking down Rafalski's lifeforce...



-Ricardo

I hate you guys.

[bethandlouis]

But you secretly love us

[MGB Boy]

But it's a good kind of hate...

-Ricardo

[MGB Boy]

Came perilously close to blowing some money on another set of pads yesterday. The Brian's Thief pads that Timmy wore late in the season were up on eBay this week. Beyond being a really cool Timmy souvenir, I'd be interested to try the pads. I've been a Vaughn guy for a while, but the only other brand that has tempted me has been Brian's. I liked the Vaughn Velo 1s enough that I got Velo 2s last summer, but if I hadn't gone with the Velos, my second choice probably would have been either Brian's Beasts or Brian's Thiefs. I suppose it shouldn't come as a shock, the Brian's and Vaughns have similar set ups, last year Michael Vaughn bought a controlling stake in Brian's Custom Mfg. The Timmy pads were even really close to my set up, I wear a 35+1.5, these were a 35+2. Ended up going for $400, a pretty good deal. But I need to spend more money on more pads like I need a hole in my head, so it's just as well that I forgot what time the auction was ending....



-Ricardo

[bethandlouis]

Ow-got something in my eye.

Zubie signed with the NJ Devils today so now Buffalo has officially no one left. I hope that Ryan Miller can play iron man.

I ordered a black caps jersey from Ice jerseys. They're having a special on personlization so with the jersey and the personalization (with shipping) it came to $92. The only problem is that they only had 1 size left. XXL, it's gonna be huge.

[bethandlouis]

Everything has a way of working it's way out. I love selective e-bay memory. I was able to turn a profit on some things I bought at Staples though. We had 60GB Portable Hard Drives that were marked down to $12.50 each. I bought 3 of them and put them on e-bay. Each went for $35. So now I have e-bay money burning a hole in my pocket, though I should stay away from it (since I just ordered the jersey). But I did see an MGA that I really liked. Too bad $72 dollars doesn't translate into a couple thousand. Although I need another car like I need a hole in the head...

[MGB Boy]

The Sabres brass has already started rolling out the "small market teams can't compete with the big markets, yada yada yada" crap. Shut up guys, there's a salary cap, that excuse doesn't cut it anymore. They tried to low-ball their guys and it blew up in their faces. Plain and simple. They've taken a huuuuuuge step backwards this week. They won't be Islanders-bad, but they won't be conference final good either, not unless they start making some crazy trades.

Extra big is fashionable in hockey jerseys. That sounds like a good price, might need to go and waste more money...

-Ricardo

[bethandlouis]

Sorry I gave you the idea.

Jackass is on the T.V., is it really illegal to feed someone else's meter? Seems like a strange thing to make a law (I guess parking fines do rake in a lot of money though)

[bethandlouis]

Quote: Originally Posted by MGB Boy (original)

The Sabres brass has already started rolling out the "small market teams can't compete with the big markets, yada yada yada" crap. Shut up guys, there's a salary cap, that excuse doesn't cut it anymore. They tried to low-ball their guys and it blew up in their faces. Plain and simple. They've taken a huuuuuuge step backwards this week. They won't be Islanders-bad, but they won't be conference final good either, not unless they start making some crazy trades.

-Ricardo

Have they seen the Caps? Do they know that team exists? The Caps have been terrible for so many years it seems like a dream that we ever made it to the Finals. What kind of craptastic teams were in the league that year? I think that this year we are going to be pretty decent (famous last words) but I think that we have the talent to go far (maybe not all the way) but it seems that with the talent that we have we'll be able to do something.

[MGB Boy]

I've always wanted an MGA if for no other reason than the fact that it has no door handles on the outsides of the doors. No side windows either. That totally rocks.



-Ricardo