Pittsburgh South

When Shero traded for Hossa at the deadline, Pierre McGuire said that he didn't care for the move because it made Pittsburgh "Tampa Bay North" - alluding to Tampa's disastrous situation of having three star players making a big pile of money.

Well, I believe we can now call Tampa "Pittsburgh South" considering how they have signed all kinds of former Penguins in the last few weeks.

There's the new scout, Greg Malone, who may have helped to lure his son Ryan to Tampa...Gary Roberts, Adam Hall, and now Mark Recchi also signed this off-season. These four players played in Pittsburgh at some point last season, and Michel Ouellet was a Penguin the season before.

If Tampa wanted a new start this season, it looks like they got it. I just hope they aren't hoping that these former Penguins will hand them another Stanley Cup, because it won't happen. Ryan Malone has the potential of making the biggest impact on the team, but nothing is for certain.

Tampa's all about the offense....and nothing else

What is going on down in Tampa?

They finished in the basement of the conference last season, so they decided to pull a Philly and turn things around.

New ownership, new coach, number one draft pick, trades galore, signings left, right and centre - many of those players being former Penguins.

They are looking good up front. Really good. But what about the defensive part of the game?

Tampa's defensive corps has been a little, uh, leaky in recent times, yet they want Dan Boyle (number 1 d-man) to waive his no trade clause so that they can ship him out. Wow.

Now TSN and Sportsnet are reporting that Tampa is shopping goalie Mike Green. If Green was out of town, recently signed Olaf Kolzig would be their numero uno.

Umm...don't they know that you have to stop the other team from scoring, too?

Unless they are planning on shipping Boyle and Green to Vancouver for Roberto Luongo...Nah, that wouldn't happen.

It is still early in free agency, so who knows what Feaster and the crew will do in coming weeks. Hopefully they'll address the defensive holes in the team, but even if they don't, it will be interesting to see how this little experiment pans out.

Welcome to the pissing contest

A few days ago, the Tampa Bay Lightning acquired the rights to negotiate with Ryan Malone and Gary Roberts, with a 2009 draft pick going to Pittsburgh.

Then, we learned last night that Malone has signed a deal with the Lightning, a deal that will pay him $31.5M over 7 years. He will receive $7M and $8M in those first two years.

We all knew that Malone was likely searching for his big pay day, and his numbers from the second half of the season helped to launch him into that group of free agents that teams wanted to sign.

I don't want to disrespect Malone or anything, but I honestly don't like this deal.

I think that Tampa is overpaying Malone with this contract. Sure, his cap hit is $4.5M/year, but figures like $7-8M for a 51-point player (only one season, remember?) is a little ridiculous.

How is this going to impact on the rest of this year's free agent class? We saw Briere get an insane contract last year, so I imagine that THAT trend will continue. However, I have to believe that Malone's contract may make things a little worse.

Look at it this way - an impending free agent wants to know what kind of contract to demand from potential suitors. He looks at what other players are making and what other players are being awarded. A guy like Marian Hossa must look at Malone's contract and realize that he should get a bigger pay day because he's a better player. If that's the case, what are the chances that he'll resign with Pittsburgh?

Sure, the salary cap just went up several million dollars, but I believe that more and more players are demanding (undeserved) higher salaries. It's almost like a pissing contest - let's see who can get more money and more years. I believe that there are very few players who should be able to make more than $6M/year, and this pissing contest of sorts is only making it harder for a team to sign an impact player.

Random NHL news

The media asked Tiger Woods who he's rooting for in the SCF, the Wings or Pens. He had this to say:

"I don't really care. It's all about the Dodgers. I don't think anyone really watches hockey anymore."

Well, my respect for him just dropped a few notches...

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Looks like the Maple Leafs are getting ready to hire a coach. Fletcher said that he offered a coach a job, and it is widely believed that Ron Wilson was that coach.

Imagine if hard-ass Wilson comes to Toronto? Maybe it's just what the team needs...

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Other coaching news: John Tortorella was officially fired today. I'm glad they did it now instead of dragging it out until the new owners take over - this gives him a good shot at finding a job sooner rather than later.

Maybe Ottawa? Those guys could use a kick in the arse.

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The NHL and TSN have announced a new 6-year deal that will put 70 games on TSN this year, not including the first three playoff rounds.

Those 70 games will feature at least 1 Canadian team, with 17 games going to the Leafs, 15 to the Habs, and 10 for each of the Flames, Sens, Oilers, and Canucks.

The Wednesday night game will be a feature in the schedule, as there will be no other NHL game broadcasted in Canada that evening.

So, now we have at least 3 NHL games a week: the Wednesday night TSN game, and the double header on CBC on Saturdays. That doesn't take other games played on TSN, or the ones on Sportsnet, or CBC...I say bring it on! The more hockey, the better.

I'm just wondering how many Pens games we'll get to see.

Tortorella out of Tampa?

TSN is reporting that John Tortorella may be out of Tampa Bay this summer with Barry Melrose stepping in, if incoming owner Oren Koules has his way.

For those who don't know, Melrose is currently a hockey analyst with ESPN and used to coach the Los Angeles Kings - he even got them to the Stanley Cup Finals back in '93.

If, indeed, Torts is out, where will he go? Surely, he won't be left out on the market very long; someone will snatch him up very quickly.

Two teams looking for coaches are the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Ottawa Senators. I can only imagine the sound bites if Torts agreed to coach a Canadian team. After all, it would be in the middle of enemy territory: TCM (The Canadian Media).

TCM must certainly be salivating at the thought of having Torts around town. I bet they are arming themselves with video cameras and microphones, ready to capture every insult on tape to broadcast every night and every morning on SportsCentre. Heck, they could probably create a Top 10 of Tortorella's media rants every single month.

It's a European Game...?

The NHL has formally announced that the 2008-09 season will open in Europe, just like it did this year.

However, there is one difference: four teams will open their seasons in Europe.

The Pittsburgh Penguins and the Ottawa Senators will open in Stockholm, Sweden, while the New York Rangers and the Tampa Bay Lightning will play a home-and-home in Prague, Czech Republic.

Granted, these countries love hockey. The game in Sweden will be nice because the Swedes love Daniel Alfredsson, and the Czechs will go nuts for Jaromir Jagr.

But, in my humble opinion, this is not the greatest of ideas.

First, I remember how the Anaheim Ducks played after starting the season in London, England - they were tired and didn't play well.

Second, why in the world is the NHL focusing on Europe? Is this further proof that Bettman wants to expand across the pond?

Silly me, I thought the NHL wanted to make hockey more popular in the US, where they already have 24 teams but are hardly more popular than Major League Soccer.

I thought that it didn't make sense to play four games overseas and forfeit most of that revenue. I don't think the money from those sold out arenas are going back to the NHL clubs...

I thought the only logical thing would be to stabilize your product where it already exists before branching out. Maybe relocate a few franchises to cities that actually care about hockey...perhaps focus the cash and the efforts on marketing plans and events this side of the Atlantic...

But hey, what do I know?

Pre-Season Predictions: Southeast Division

Of the three divisions in the Eastern Conference, I think that the Southeast will be the weakest. We may see just one team of the bunch get to the playoffs.

The Atlanta Thrashers were definitely humiliated by the Rangers during the playoffs this spring, and it will be interesting how they bounce back after that embarrassing debut. They seem to be good in goal, they have a pair of really nice looking players up front in Hossa and Kovalchuk, and they have a pretty good team overall. They’ll be in a race with Tampa for the top spot in the Southeast.

The Tampa Bay Lightning just changed ownership, but I’m not sure that they’re going to be a much better club this season than they were last year. Granted, they have the “Big 3” in Lecavalier, St. Louis, and Richards, who will all continue to play hard and carry the team. They also have underrated defenseman Dan Boyle and pretty good goaltending, so I think that they have a chance to make the playoffs if their star players remain healthy. But another run for the Stanley Cup? Nope.

The Carolina Hurricanes captured the Stanley Cup in 2006, and then fell out of the playoffs in 2007. The big question is whether they will turn their luck around and make another run at it. I’m not inclined to think so. They have a number of players who look pretty good on the ice (Staal, Williams, Commodore, Brind’Amour, Ward), but I’m not sold on the team as a whole. About half of the team is in their 30’s, with 4 being 35 and older. It’s not necessarily bad to have older players on the team, since they bring experience and leadership to the mix, but there’s always the question of whether they can keep pace and not show the signs of age.

The team as a whole will have to get their act together this season and fight for one of the last playoff spots, but I'm not sure they'll make it.

The Florida Panthers are a team that has some really good players (hello Horton, Jokinen, and Bouwmeester), but they are a disaster as a whole. They did make an upgrade in net this season with Vokoun, but I think everybody would agree that they should have kept Luongo (well, everybody but Mike Keenan). Noah Welch and Cory Murphy are the new guys on D, and they should do pretty well. I really liked the look of Murphy at Worlds, and he’ll probably become a power play specialist in the NHL. But will the Panthers be golfing in April? Yep.

The Washington Capitals is a team that is a bit of a question mark. You have a feeling that they are going to break out of their shell soon and really stir things up, but will that happen this year? Eh, probably not, but don’t count them out of the running for a playoff spot. Ovechkin was very ticked off last season because his team missed the playoffs and his own stats were not as impressive as they were the year before – look for him to pound his way back. Semin is also a really good player, but since he doesn’t speak English and seems to be a quiet guy in general, he has really been under the radar (I bet a lot of people haven’t even heard of this other Alex). Michael Nylander and Nicklas Backstrom should also add some offensive punch to the lineup. I expect that hockey people will be talking about the Capitals a little bit more this year, but they are still years away from being a Cup-contending team.