Holy shitake mushrooms! JR's coming back!

Jeremy Roenick has delayed his retirement and has signed a one-year, $500K contract with the San Jose Sharks. I didn't take the retirement rumours seriously, since he is only 5 goals shy of the 500 mark and is also within striking distance of the 700 assist mark. Why retire when you're thisclose to two milestones?

I don't think that this signing is that bad. Sure, JR is on the decline - he only scored 11 goals and 17 assists in 70 games last season - but you have to give him credit because he signed for next to nothing, perhaps indicating that he just wants to play hockey. Who knows, maybe playing on a much more talented team will inflate his points this year...

I only wish that he had signed with the Leafs. With all of the media coverage in Toronto, he'd be the star of SportsCentre every single night.

Please TSN, give JR a job as a full-time hockey analyst once he retires from the NHL.

Long-term, big money contracts: Not such a great idea after all.

Milan Michalek of the San Jose Sharks just signed a 6 year contract worth $26M, which will begin in the 2008-09 season. As the summer comes to a close, I realize that we have seen this contract time and time again in the last few months - the big money, long term contract. Derek Roy, Ryan Whitney, Dustin Penner, Stephen Weiss...and the list goes on.

I've been thinking a lot about this issue lately, and I'm conflicted. On the one hand, I think that these players are really good and part of me is not bothered by the salary. But on the other hand, I think that players are receiving the big bucks because of their potential - their current paychecks are not based on what they are doing now, but rather what they are projected to do in the future. This is a dangerous way to do business because a player may not develop as predicted, leaving the team with a player who is grossly overpaid. And the long term nature of the contracts just make everything worse.

I heard that the NBA went through something like this in the late 90s, when they were handing out long term contracts to their players - and things fell apart. Now, the teams hand out short term contracts and everybody's happy. It's too bad that the NHL didn't learn from the NBA's mistakes...

NHL teams should hire some people who specialize in the salary cap. In fact, I predict that 'Cap-o-logists' will be in high demand within the next couple of years.

I think I picked the wrong major...

Pre-Season Predictions: Pacific Division

The Anaheim Ducks celebrated their first Stanley Cup win this June, and it will be interesting to see what kind of roster changes happen before training camp. They already lost Penner to the Oilers and picked up Bertuzzi from the Red Wings (though I’d rather take Penner than Bertuzzi for $4M). Schneider also decided to leave Detroit for sunny California. The big question, though, is if Scott Niedermayer and Teemu Selanne retire. If they do, the Ducks will certainly miss them – but their play won’t really suffer. It says a lot about a team when they can lose two of their top players and still have the potential of going deep into the playoffs.

The Dallas Stars is a quiet team, at least in this part of the world, but that doesn’t mean that they’re not good. They have a lot of good players, starting with Mike Modano, but the guy I really like is Marty Turco. I felt really bad for Turco this spring in the playoff series against Vancouver because he had to prove himself by getting the Stars to the second round, but his teammates in front of him let him down. Turco played 7 outstanding games with 3 shutouts and a ridiculous GAA; I hope he doesn’t get any flack because the Stars lost in the first round. In my opinion, all of that blame lies with the forwards who couldn’t score.

I think the Stars will land themselves in the playoffs once again. I expect that they’ll find a little more success in the post-season.

The San Jose Sharks have what’s looking like a crazy good team. Rivet’s looking better in California than in Montreal, ‘Pickles’ is developing into something good, and then you have the forwards: Thornton, Michalek, Cheechoo, Marleau, and so on. If Nabokov can stay solid in net, and if Thornton can push through the playoffs with consistency, then there won’t be much slowing this ‘big’ team down.

The Los Angeles Kings have been hanging around the basement of the League standings for awhile, and I think they’re finally on the upswing. If Cammalleri, Frolov and Kopitar can keep up the good work, and the new guys (like Stuart and Nagy) can contribute, then the Kings might get closer to the playoffs this year. They definitely got a good deal when they acquired Jack Johnson in a trade – something tells me that Carolina will be smacking their heads over this one. The Kings won’t be in the playoffs this season, but they won’t be at the bottom of the League.

That’s because the Phoenix Coyotes will be bringing up the rear come April. The GM may have lost his job this year, but new guy Maloney didn’t do anything to improve the team. Their biggest free agent signing was probably David Aebischer, and that’s not a good thing considering how he finished his season in Montreal.

Jeff Mackie put it best when he wrote, “Who’s going to score goals?” When your team has only one player who scored more than 20 goals in the previous season, something is desperately wrong. Kyle Turris may be able to help the team on the scoring front, but he won’t be available for duty for at least a year. And does anyone else think it’s a little ironic that this score-less team is coached by Wayne Gretzky?

The only bright spot that I can see (and it’s really just a dim ‘light bulb moment’) is that Gretzky acknowledged this spring that the Coyotes have to start building their team through the draft. It certainly is better than loading up on veterans who can’t sign elsewhere. I guess Phoenix fans will be spending the next several years getting their biggest thrill from the Entry Draft.