Tag Archives: Calgary Flames

Should There Be More Teams in the Stanley Cup Playoffs?

Posted on April 5, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

TAMPA, Fla. — Dallas Stars scouting director, Les Jackson, believes the National Hockey League needs to add more teams to the post-season. Not necessarily for the sake of competition as much as for the sake of the business.

Friday night I was sitting with Jackson, an old friend from way back in the days when he coached the Brandon Wheat Kings, at the Lightning-Rangers game in Tampa and he asked an interesting question: “Why wouldn’t the NHL want to add eight more teams to the playoffs every year? Why wouldn’t the league want to do everything to help its members make some money?”

It was a nell of a question. According to Jackson, if more teams made the playoffs fewer would lose big money. It makes overwhelming sense and, with some thought, it could be practical, too.

“Back in the glory days of the six-team NHL, four of six teams made the playoffs. If you carried that on to today, it means the league should have 20 teams in the playoffs. So why not 24? Why not give the teams that are in tough hockey markets a chance to sell the game in the post-season? Everybody loves the playoffs. Why not let more teams have the chance to enjoy the playoffs?”

It would be easy to say, “We don’t want more teams in the playoffs because it makes the regular season less important,” but I understand what Jackson means even from the competitive standpoint. This year, a team that’s 10 games above .500 (Calgary) might miss the playoffs and two teams that are seven games above .500 (Anaheim and St. Louis) WILL miss the playoffs. Right now, seven teams with better than .500 records will miss the post-season.

If we were talking about crappy teams without a hope, I could understand why fans wouldn’t want to add any more teams. But this year, a load of teams that will miss the playoffs are probably good enough to challenge more than half the teams that make it. The competition would not suffer.

Jackson is right. The NHL should add at least four and maybe eight more teams to the post-season. It wouldn’t hurt the competition and it would definitely improve the business.

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The Playoffs Are Coming. It’s Manitoba’s Best Year Ever.

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

This was a big week around the National Hockey League.

Jonathan Toews and the Chicago Blackhawks clinched a playoff berth, Travis Zajac continued to have the best year of his career as he leads the New Jersey Devils into the post-season and Barry Trotz, the head coach of the Nashville Predators, keeps the Preds winning even though they don’t have enough personnel or enough star personnel to be as good as they are.

Some notes from a week in the hockey trenches observing the brilliance of the Manitoba kids in the NHL…

1) This is as good a time as any to praise the Finnish Flash, Teemu Selanne. Last Sunday night, Selanne scored his 600th career goal to become only the 18th player in history to reach the 600-goal plateau.

Congratulations to a great guy, a guy who scored his first 147 with the Winnipeg Jets.

2) When he played for the Toronto Maple Leafs, Winnipeg-born Alexander Steen appeared to be spinning his wheels, going nowhere fast. Now, as a member of the St. Louis, Steen is having a career year.

Through 60 games, Steen has 21 goals and 21 assists and is a plus-five on a minus team. He’s the Blues third leading scorer and is tied for the team lead in goals even though he’s played 10 and 11 fewer games than the two players ahead of him.

After struggling in Toronto and often being a healthy scratch, he has become a big time offensive player in St. Louis. At 26, he is developing into one of the two or three best players on the Blues.

3) If there was one player who could have played on Canada’s Olympic team and didn’t, it was Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos. Now, as the season winds down and Tampa misses the playoffs, Stamkos, who was a great friend of 92-CITI-FM and the old Cosmo Show, has a chance to show how good he really is.

Heading into the weekend, Stamkos was tied with Sidney Crosby and Alexander Ovechkin for the NHL goal-scoring lead with 45. Could Steven Stamkos win the Rocket Richard Trophy? You bet he could.

4) The Calgary Flames, and the red-hot Nigel Dawes of Winnipeg, have an uphill battle to make the Stanley Cup playoffs, but we will know by this coming Sunday whether the Flames have what it takes to reach the post-season.

The Flames started a five-games-in-seven-days stretch with a 4-3 loss at Minnesota on Sunday. They beat the Anaheim Ducks in Calgary on Tuesday night, but lost a big game to the Islanders, 3-2, on Thursday night. They play at Boston on Saturday and at Washington on Sunday and if they don’t win both of them, they’ll be pretty much done.

5) Manitoba’s top young players have had rock solid seasons in 2009-2010.

Winnipeg-born Duncan Keith, a Chicago Blackhawks defenseman, has 13 goals and 52 assists for 65 points, 31st overall in the NHL and second among defensemen. He’s also a plus-18.

New Jersey rightwinger/centre Travis Zajac has 23 goals and 38 assists for 61 points, 34th in scoring in the NHL. He’s also a plus-16.

Winnipeg-born Patrick Sharp (plus-22) of the Blackhawks has 22 goals and 39 assists and is also 34th in NHL scoring.

Winnipeg’s Jonathan Toews, the captain of the Blackhawks, has 22 goals and 37 assists for 59 points and is a plus-20. He’s 43rd in scoring.

Winkler’s Dustin Penner has 27 goals and 28 assists and is a plus-5 on a very minus Edmonton Oilers team.

Meanwhile, Alexander Steen of Winnipeg and Eric Fehr of Winkler each have 21 goals while Nigel Dawes of Winnipeg has 13.

This might be Manitoba’s best year ever in the NHL.

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More Hockey Talk As The NHL GMs Meet in Florida

Posted on March 9, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

There were nine NHL games on Tuesday night in the NHL, five more on Wednesday and 10 more on Thursday night. After 14 days at the Olympics, the NHL has a lot of catching up to do. It will be difficult to keep up.

In the meantime, from new rules regarding hits to the head, possible new shootout rules and a lawsuit against the former owner of the Phoenix Coyotes, this is just about the busiest March of the decade.

Let’s look a little deeper inside the NHL…

1) On Sunday, the 92-CITI-Sports Machine was in St. Paul, Minn., to watch the suddenly strong Calgary Flames drill the Minnesota Wild 5-2. So what suddenly changed in Calgary?

Simple, as we told you on Sunday, Flames head coach Brent Sutter put Jarome Iginla on a line with Rene Bourque And Matt Stajan and on Sunday, the line combined for 10 points as Iginla had his 10th career hat-trick.

Not bad, for only the second game together and they were pretty darn good on Tuesday night in their third game together. Bourque and Iginla each scored once and added an assist and the Flames won (4-2)  a rare one in Detroit.

2) If there was one team that would frighten me if I were the San Jose Sharks or Chicago Blackhawks, it would be the Detroit Red Wings.

The Wings have been banged up all season long. For months, they had at least three of their best players out of the lineup. They were half a hockey team for much of the season. But now they’re healthy, the playoffs are beckoning and if Jimmy Howard gets the job done, the Wings could be the sleeper of the playoffs.

But first, they have to play better than they did against Calgary on Tuesday night.

3) This weekend while I was in St. Paul, a number of hockey experts watched the newly formed Iginla-Stajan-Bourque line and wondered aloud which line was the best in the game today.

A couple suggested Alexander Ovechkin-Alexander Semin and anyone on the other side, but the consensus seemed to be that the best line in the NHL was New Jersey’s No. 1 line of Zach Parise, Jamie Langenbrunner and Winnipeg’s own Travis Zajac.

If nothing else, it’s one of the few lines in the NHL that has been together for most of the season and it provide salmost all of New Jersey’s scoring.

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It’s Run-To-The-Playoffs Time in the NHL.

Posted on March 7, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

ST. PAUL, Minn. – As the Calgary Flames whipped the Minnesota Wild 5-2 on Sunday afternoon, the NHL started its run to the playoffs.

Most NHL teams now have 16-18 games left this season. We’re solidly past the three-quarter-pole and there are just five weeks left in this rather odd season.

After a 14-day break for the Olympics, the NHL is loading up on games and there will be some tired superstars once the playoffs roll around. Until then, let’s take a quick look around The League.

1) Monday night (actually Tuesday morning at 12:10 a.m.), I’m Eric Nelson’s guest on the Eric Nelson Show on 8-3-0 WCCO radio in Minneapolis and we taped the segment on Sunday at the Xcel Energy Center.

Eric asked me to set the NHL’s final four. I told him, Chicago and San Jose in the West and Pittsburgh and Washington in the East. He then asked, “Which teams are the darkhorses?” I told him that question was more fun.

In the West, Detroit is finally healthy and they could be scary when it counts if Jimmy Howard can get the job done in goal. I like Vancouver, too, if Roberto Luongo doesn’t choke like a dog as he did last year.

In the East, I like Buffalo and New Jersey because they both have great goaltenders (Ryan Miller and Martin Brodeur). As Brian Burke always said, “We call it the Stanley Cup playoffs because we can’t call it goalie.” He may not have been right about Ian White, Alexei Ponikarovsky or Matt Stajan, but he’s right about that.

2) There was a time in the late 1990s and early 2000s when a Canadian player in the NHL’s Top 10 in scoring was a rarity. A decade ago, the stats were dominated by Europeans.

However, while Euros such as Alex Ovechkin and Henrik Sedin are at the top of the NHL’s scoring stats today, there are now five Canadians and one American in the Top 10. What is even more interesting is that Pittsburgh’s Sidney Crosby took over the goal-scoring lead on Saturday with his 43rd and 44th and young Steven Stamkos scored his 40th of the year on Saturday. Youth is also being served.

Maybe that Canada-U.S. Olympic final will be a trend, not a fluke.

3) Metis star Rene Bourque hadn’t scored a goal in 15 games until Calgary Flames head coach Brent Sutter put him on a line with Jarome Iginla and Matt Stajan. You’d think it was the return of the Hot Line.

Sunday night at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, Minn., the Bourque-Stajan-Iginla line combined for 10 points as the Flames drilled the Wild 5-2. Iginla had three goals and an assist, Stajan had two assists and Bourque, suddenly playing the best hockey in more than a month, had a goal and three assists.

The Flames have been struggling, but since Sutter created this line, Calgary has won two straight solidified their hold on ninth and are now only one point out of eighth and two points out of seventh.

At this stage of the season, a simple move like a line change can positively alter a team’s fortune. Sutter’s decision to create the Bourque-Stajan-Iginla line might have been the move that gets Calgary into the playoffs.

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Leafs Change Course. Team Barely Recognizable.

Posted on February 1, 2010 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Toronto Maple Leafs general manager Brian Burke did not mince words yesterday.

After cutting two huge deals, one with the Calgary Flames and the other with the Anaheim Ducks, Burke quipped: ”We’re still open for business. We’re not done.”

Obviously, Burke has decided that his lousy Leafs were indeed really, really lousy, so it’s time to overhaul the franchise.

On Sunday, Burke shipped out six players and got four in return.

First, the Leafs sent their best player so far this year, Steinbach’s Ian White, along with Matt Stajan, Nicklas Hagman and Jamal Mayers to the Calgary Flames in exchange for defensemen Dion Phaneuf and Keith Aulie and winger Fredrik Sjostrom. Then, the Leafs dealt goalie Vesa Toskala and forward Jason Blake to Anaheim in exchange for goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere.

Wow! At 17-28-11, the Leafs were desperate. Now they’re younger. But are they better?

“It was definitely a shock, but I’m very excited about going to Toronto and being a Maple Leaf,” Phaneuf told TSN.

“It’s a cliche. If Wayne Gretzky can get traded, anyone can get traded. I was very surprised, but on the other hand I’m very excited to be going to the biggest hockey market in the world.”

I understand that when a player is traded he has to say nice things about his new team. And I also understand that Canadian-born hockey players always say the right thing. I get all that. But in this case Phaneuf is lying through his mouthguard.

Saturday he was playing defence on a team in a big slump, but a team that will still make the playoffs. Sunday, he finds himself playing for a team that won’t finish .500.

The Leafs, after all, are tied with Carolina for last-place overall in the Eastern Conference.

In the end yesterday, the Leafs gave up White (a plus-one on a minus-48 team who was having a career year and always said he was “honoured” to be a Toronto Maple Leaf), Stajan, Hagman, Mayers, Toskala and Blake — six NHL-caliber players — and got Phaneuf, Aulie, Sjostrom and Giguere — three NHLers and a Marlie — in return.

Does that make them better? One can’t imagine.

After all, the Leafs were 11 games under .500 after a loss to Vancouver on Saturday. One day later they’re barely recognizable.

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A Big Night For Our Local Jocks Out in the Wide World of Pro Sports.

Posted on October 9, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

I’m off to Tampa tomorrow. Hockey, football, Disney, my daughter, all the things that make Florida great. When you live and work in Winnipeg, MB., it’s October and the snow is on its way, heading off to sporting events where it’s 40 degrees C. is better than a morning on the Tom & Joe Show on 92-CITI-FM — and that’s about as much fun as a human being should be allowed to have.

Speaking of Tom & Joe, we had Chicago Bears defensive tackle Israel Idonije on this morning talking about his fund raising raffle for both the Bisons and Sister McNamara School. What Izzy still does to raise money for the right causes in Winnipeg is way past commendable, but he does it and we love him for it.

This past week, Idonije was tremendous in a 48-24 Bears win over Detroit. He had a tackle and a forced fumble and then, on Monday, went out and had arthroscopic surgery on a minor knee injury. Interestingly, one of our local bird-cage liners carried the headline “Idonije Could Be Out For The Season.” The story came from AP, so you can’t blame the fishwrap, but come on, it was minor arthro. Think before just blindly running an AP story on a local guy who isn’t as injured as the Associated Press (which doesn’t know him and didn’t know the injury) tried to make him out to be.

“I’m doing great, heading off to work, I’ll be ready to go in the Atlanta game,” Idonije said. “It wasn’t a big deal. Just a little clean up. I’m fine.”

Look, the Bears might hold him out an extra week, but he says he’ll be ready to go Sunday night, Oct. 18 against the Falcons. The reason he had the procedure this past week was because the Bears are on their bye-week. Have people suddenly become stupid?

But hey, Izzy is just another extremely talented Manitoba kid caught up in the nasty and high-paying world of big-time pro sports — which might not be as nasty or as messed up as the media types who follow it.

In fact, Thursday was a great day for Manitobans and folks with close ties to the province. Let’s review:

1) In Los Angeles, former Winnipeg Goldeyes reliever, George Sherrill, pitched another scoreless inning against the Cards and earned the win in a 3-2 Dodgers victory. The Dodgers lead the series 2-0 and Sherrill has been almost flawless in two appearances.

2) The Calgary Flames beat the Edmonton Oilers 4-3 in a shootout. Winnipeg’s Nigel Dawes scored his first goal of the year for the Flames and also added a goal in the shootout. Finally, Dawes is getting a chance to play on a scoring line in the NHL. The Flames might have the best $750,000-a-year player in the game. By the way, former Jets goaltender, Nikolai Khabibulin, was the best player on the ice for the Oilers

3) The New Jersey Devils beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-3 in a shootout in Tampa. Winnipeg’s Travis Zajac scored his second goal of the season and added an assist. His goal came at the 19:59 mark of the third period and sent the game into overtime.

4) Pittsburgh beat Philadelphia 5-4, but Portage LaPrairie’s Arron Asham finally got a chance to play and gave the Flyers 11 solid minutes.

5) The Anaheim Ducks massacred the Boston Bruins 6-1 as former Winnipeg Jet Teemu Selanne scored twice, 82 seconds apart, in the second period. Head coach Randy Carlyle’s Ducks (Carlyle is a former Jets defenceman and Manitoba Moose head coach) blasted the Bruins right in downtown Boston.

6) Detroit beat Chicago 3-2, but Winnipeg’s Jonathan Toews, the Blackhawks captain, played 26 minutes. There is pretty serious talk now that with three of their biggest stars in the final years of their respective contracts, the Blackhawks might be forced to make a trade to free up some salary cap space for next season. Toews, Patrick Kane and Winnipeg-born Duncan Keith can become restricted free agents next summer, however the Blackhawks intend to keep all three. If a deal is done, it won’t be done until next year’s draft and yes, defenceman Cam Barker from Winnipeg (he has a $3,25 million per year salary) appears to be the most likely player who would be involved in a deal.

7) Atlanta beat St. Louis 4-2 but once again former Winnipeg Jets leftwinger-centre, Keith Tkachuk, had a terrific game. Tkachuk had a goal and an assist ad now, at 37, has three goals and three assists in the Blues’ first three games.
icon cool A Big Night For Our Local Jocks Out in the Wide World of Pro Sports. And the Nashville Predators beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-2. Jordin Tootoo from Chruchill and Colin Wilson, the son of Winnipeg’s Carey Wilson, were scratched with injuries Thursday night, but Neepawa’s Triston Grant got a chance to play and did a good job in 11 minutes of action.

In a week in which Todd McCullough, the former NBA star from Winnipeg’s Shaftesbury High School, was inducted, with the first class, into the Manitoba High School Athleltic Association Hall of Fame, it was a pretty great for Manitoba’s athletes.

Keep coming back here for regular updates. Unlike AP, we’ll make an effort to get it right.

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This pounding in my head is starting to hurt. Lots of little things making me crazy these days…

Posted on July 17, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

Here’s what’s rattling around in my cranium this weekend:

1) According to nhl.com, The Calgary Flames claimed Winnipeg’s Nigel Dawes, a restricted free agent, off waivers from the Phoenix Coyotes. Another great off-season move by the Flames and a tremendous break for Dawes.

Nigel can score and grind, depending on what a team needs. He also comes cheap and for a club like the Flames with all that high-priced talent — Phaneuf, Iginla, Kiprusoff, Regehr and Bouwmeester — a good player like Dawes, who isn’t expensive, fits right under the Calgary cap quite nicely.

It’s a great move by the Flames and another loss for Phoenix, one of the worst franchises — on and off the playing surface — in any sport.

2) The loudest message sent by anyone playing in the Canadian Football League on Thursday night was sent by B.C. Lions quarterback Jarious Jackson. After an injury to Buck Pierce, Jackson took over the offence of the 0-2 Lions and essentially told head coach Wally Buono he, not Pierce, was the No. 1 QB in B.C.

Jackson went 19-for-28 for 362 yards and four touchdowns in a 40-22 shellacking of the Eskimos in Edmonton. It’s probably time for a change on the West Coast.

3) Even the Hamilton Tiger-Cats are now saying that the alleged Blue Bombers’ “spy” Ron Trentini, was about as useless as oil on a duck.

This past week’s nonsensical “spygate” was a media-manufactured scandal designed to feed the beast. It had nothing to do with cheating, football or even good reading. It was a waste of time and Bomber head coach Mike Kelly knew that from Day 1.

The mainstream media, meanwhile, just made up a story where one didn’t exist, proving once again that most of them have never played on a slo-pitch team, let alone a football team.

Meanwhile, if the CFL is going to send out missives chiding people for perceived wrongdoing, the note they should send to Mike Kelly is the one that warns the Bomber coach about  scooping good players from Edmonton and B.C. Kelly probably owes the dog-ass Eskimos and Lions more compensation for literally stealing Sideeq Shabazz, Stefan Lefors, Fred Perry, Tyrone Williams and Kelly Bates.

4) It’s the mid-season mark of the 2009 NASCAR campaign and, my  two NASCAR buddies, Camshaft Pierce and Tirehead Campbell, have made their choices for biggest disappointment and biggest surprise of the first half of the season.

The biggest disappointments? No question about it, the consistently poor showing of Dale Earnhardt Jr. and the failure of Carl Edwards, David Ragan and the Haas Racing team. The most pleasant surprises? Again, no doubt. Tony Stewart, winning and leading the point standings as an owner-driver and Mark Martin winning four times as a 50-year-old

5) Our Headline of the Week:

Tom McGouran pointed this one out at 7:10 a.m. on Friday, during another lively moment on 92-CITI-FM radio’s Tom and Joe Show.

McNair Murder Not Likely To Deter Player Infidelities: Winnipeg Sun.

Now that one doesn’t even pass the “no-shit” test. Wonder which crack AP editor assigned that in-depth, tell-me-something-I-don’t-already-know story?

No wonder young people have stopped reading newspapers.

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Three more little things bouncing around among my gray cells…

Posted on July 6, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

After a wonderful weekend of sports brilliance and silliness, I had a few little things banging around in my noggin. Here goes…

1) Two of the world’s greatest athletes rose to the occasion on Sunday. (Fact is, it was quite a day for Nike and Gillette. Their two most prominent spokesmen were both big winners.)

At Wimbledon, Roger Federer defeated Andy Roddick, in a marathon, 5-7, 7-6, 7-6, 3-6, 16-14 to win his record 15th Grand Slam title and the sixth Wimbledon championship of his career.

Meanwhile, Tiger Woods, made birdie at 16 to go 13-under and win his own tournament, the AT&T National at Congressional Country Club outside Washington, D.C. It was his third win of the year, the 68th of his career and moved him to the top of both the money list and the FedEx Cup standings.

I don’t think there is any doubt. We are now watching the two most remarkable individual-sport athletes in the history of, well, individual sport.

2) The National Hockey League’s free-agent frenzy continues and there were a number of local (Manitoba) moves this weekend.

Neepawa’s “Sherriff” Shane Hnidy signed a one-year, $750,000 deal with the Minnesota Wild; Winnipeg’s Tyler Arnason signed a two-way deal with the New York Rangers; Jason Krog left the Manitoba Moose and signed a two-year deal with the NHL’s Atlanta Thrashers; Jason Jaffray left the Manitoba Moose and signed a two-year deal with the Calgary Flames; and of the 20 players who selected salary arbitration, two were Winnipeggers, Nigel Dawes will go to arbitration with Phoenix while Travis Zajac will go to arbitration with New Jersey.

Throw in Colton Orr’s four-year $4 million deal to beat people up on behalf of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Cam Barker’s semi-legal RFA offer from the Chicago Blackhasks and it was quite a week for our local hockey stars.

3) It’s Week 2 in the Canadian Football League and it starts on Thursday with Edmonton at Montreal. 

On Friday, Calgary plays right here in Winnipeg — it’s the 2009 home opener — while Hamilton is at B.C.

On Saturday, Saskatchewan plays at Toronto. All four games are, of course, on TSN.

Meanwhile, over in Bomberland, 1,000-yard receiver Derick Armstrong, who refused to play in last Thursday’s game, did not practice Sunday or Monday and was apparently being shopped to other CFL teams. He’s probably finished as a Blue Bomber and a whole load of fans are righteously pissed at head coach Mike Kelly (even though Armstrong refused to play when called upon last Thursday and in a  team game, that’s just about as selfish as it gets).

Win or lose, it’s going to be a very, very interesting football season in Winnipeg in 2009.

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Crosby, Brodeur lead the way: Camp Invitees Named for 2010 Canadian Men’s Olympic Hockey Team

Posted on July 2, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

I love this list. I would add a couple of names here and there, especially an indigenous Canadian such as Jonathan Cheechoo or Wade Redden, but for the most part, the players named to the tryout camp should give the coaching staff a chance to pick a 2010 Team Canada that has a chance to win.

I would liked to have seen Vancouver’s Kevin Bieksa invited as a defenceman, but I’ll have no problem with the final lineup.

Up front, I can’t believe Dany Heatley is on the list after the stunt he’s pulled with Ottawa and Edmonton this week. There is a real integrity and character problem there. If Hockey Canada was going to take an Ottawa Senator, I really can’t believe they took Heatley ahead of Jason Spezza. At least Spezza’s a decent human being who doesn’t hurt others around him. Steven Stamkos should probably be on the list and if you’re going to take Dan Cleary, how about Darren Helm? Of course, the list has to stop at some point.

Chris Osgood should also be on the list. Fleury? Mason? Osgood? I’ll take Osgood every time. However, I still believe Brodeur and Luongo should be the Top 2 goaltenders anyway.

Here’s the list of invitees to the 2010 Men’s Olympic Hockey Team. Team Canada’s camp goes Aug. 24-27 at the Pengrowth Saddledome in Calgary:

Only five of the 16 defencemen invited have Olympic experience: Jay Bouwmeester (Calgary Flames), Dan Boyle (San Jose Sharks), Scott Niedermayer (Anaheim Ducks),  Chris Pronger (Philadelphia Flyers), and Robyn Regehr (Calgary Flames). Rounding out the list of D-men are: Dion Phaneuf (Calgary Flames), Marc Staal (New York Rangers), Shea Weber (Nashville Predators), François Beauchemin (Anaheim Ducks), Brent Burns (Minnesota Wild), Drew Doughty (Los Angeles Kings), Stéphane Robidas (Dallas Stars), Mike Green (Washington Capitals), Dan Hamhuis (Nashville Predators), and the Chicago Blackhawks pairing of Duncan Keith and Brent Seabrook.

Pittsburgh Penguins star Sidney Crosby heads up the list of forwards. The list of 25 has 11 from the 2006 Olympic team roster, including Shane Doan (Phoenix Coyotes), Simon Gagné (Philadelphia Flyers), Dany Heatley (Ottawa Senators), Jarome Iginla (Calgary Flames), Rick Nash (Columbusn Blue Jackets), Joe Sakic (Colorado Avalanche), Martin St-Louis (Tampa Bay Lightning), Eric Staal (Carolina Hurricanes), Joe Thornton (San Jose Sharks), Vincent Lecavalier (Tampa Bay Lightning) and Ryan Smyth (Colorado Avalanche). The rest of the list includes Jeff Carter (Philadelphia Flyers), Ryan Getzlaf (Anaheim Ducks), Milan Lucic (Boston Bruins), Patrick Marleau (San Jose Sharks), Andy McDonald (St. Louis Blues), Brenden Morrow (Dallas Stars), Corey Perry (Anaheim Ducks) Michael Richards (Philadelphia Flyers), Derek Roy (Buffalo Sabres), Patrick Sharp (Chicago Blackhawks), Jordan Staal (Thunder Bay, Ont./Pittsburgh, NHL) Jonathan Toews (Winnipeg, Man./Chicago, NHL) and Dan Cleary (Detroit Red Wings).

The list of five goalies includes three-time Olympian Martin Brodeur (New Jersey Devils), 2006 Olympian Roberto Luongo (Vancouver Canucks), Stanley Cup champion Pittsburgh Penguins goalie Marc-André Fleury, Steve Mason (Columbus Blue Jackets) and Cam Ward (Carolina Hurricanes).

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Thompson says, “…there will be some dramatic events this week.”

Posted on June 29, 2009 by Scott Taylor| Leave a comment

On Wednesday, the National Hockey League’s free agent season will begin and according to Tom Thompson, the assistant general manager of the Minnesota Wild, “I’m sure there will be some dramatic events this week.”

Assuming they aren’t signed between now and Wednesday morning, the Sedin Twins, Marian Gaborik, Mattias Ohlund, Dwayne Roloson, Ales Kotalik, Marian Hossa, Chris Neil, Mike Comrie, Mike Cammalleri, Todd Bertuzzi, Mike Komisarek, Mathieu Schneider, Alex Kovalev, Alex Tanguay, Saku Koivu, Mark Recchi, Maxim Afinogenov, Ryan Bayda, Erik Cole, Patrice Brisebois, Tom Kostopoulos, Brian Gionta, John Madden, Johnny Oduya, Brendan Shanahan, Derek Morris, Nik Antropov, Martin Biron, Antero Nittymaki, Viktor Kozlov, Miroslav Satan, Petr Sykora, Rob Scuderi, Hal Gill, Todd Marchant, Jay Bouwmeester, Martin Havlat, Sami Pahlsson, Ian Laperriere, Joe Sakic, Jere Lehtinen, Jordan Leopold, Mikael Samuelsson, Marc-Andre Bergeron, Martin Skoula, Vernon Fiddler, Greg de Vries, Stephane Veilleux, Rob Blake, Mike Grier, Claude Lemieux, Travis Moen, Nolan Baumgartner, Jason Jaffray, Jason Krog and Mats Sundin, along with more than a hundred others will be unrestricted free agents..

Even some of our old friends — Shane Hnidy, Teppo Numminen, Tyler Arnason, Nikolai Khabibulin, Colton Orr and Phillipe Boucher — will be free on Wednesday. It’s going to hit the fan this week and you can bet as many teams as possible will be involved.

In fact, during the draft, Brian Burke made it clear he’ll be a buyer: “We’ll be involved on July 1,” Burke told reporters in Montreal. “The door is open for business at noon and that’s when we will start to get involved.”

He’s not alone.

“There will be moves that will get a lot of people talking,” said Thompson. “There is going to be a lot of interest in the hockey world all over North America that’s for sure.”

But why? Why so many UFAs?

“It’s partly because of the cap,” said Thompson, via telephone from his office in St. Paul. “The thing about the salary cap system is that it forces people to make choices. Because you’re restricted by how much you can spend, if you decide to do one thing, you can’t do another. It’s what makes great organizations or not-so-great organizations. You can’t have everything anymore.

“If there is one thing the cap has done, it’s put every team on an equal playing field and the smartest hockey people will be successful.”

The other thing it does, is forces team’s into last-minute decisions. It forces them to meet deadlines. It allows players to know exactly how much they’re worth. And it makes people like the Sedin Twins, who want long term deals worth at least $62 million each, worry about their decisions just as long and hard as Shane Hnidy or Jason Krog, who just might be out there looking for work.

I’d hate to suggest anything specific will happen on Wednesday. Nobody knows. But here are five things that might happen…

1) The Sedins don’t get the money they’re after in Vancouver. Mike Gillis re-signs Mattias Ohlund and signs Marian Gaborik.

2) The Sedins end up in Toronto with Brian Burke, the man who drafted them in the first place, and who will dump a pile of dull, old contracts to make sure he has the dough to sign them.

3) The Flames will sign Bouwmeester, let Cammalleri ($3.6 million) and Bertuzzi ($1.95 million) go and have plenty of money to sign the roll players he needs (he’s already dumped Jim Vandermeer and his $2.3 million deal).

4) Bob Gainey will go on an unprecedented signing frenzy and get Komisarek, Brisebois, Kostopoulos, Schneider and Tanguay signed. Saku Koivu will end up with his brother, Mikko, in Minnesota.

5) At least 50 players will change teams.

Unlike the dull-as-dishwater trade deadline television snooze, TSN, Rogers SportsNet and the Score will have an actual reason to telecast Free Agent Frenzy Shows. This should be nuts.

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