Jedi

Rivers Underneath - Stavesacre

On my own, for an individual picture, absolutely not. For a huge group picture like that? Hell yeah I would! Many Combolations to Zee & Emma!

Have You Ever Loved A Woman? - Eric Clapton

Animal Crackers in my Soup - Shirley Temple

Good for Mac!

You do realize that if a player is injured long term, that we get cap relief to be able to make adjustments, right? The details are a bit tricky (Doggy knows the details better than I), but the long and short of it is that if we lose a player long term ( > 10 games or 14 days), we will be able to go over the cap up to that player's salary while they're out. Granted if we lose him mid season the choice of free agents would be bleak, but we could make roster moves (i.e. trades or waiver pick ups) to help fill the gap. Not to mention the fact that if Franzen decides to retire, we won't be on the hook for his cap hit since he signed the contract before age 35. So if Franzen misses half a year again, we'll have some cap room to work with. And if (God forbid) he is forced to retire due to injury, we'll have that much cap space again for another free agent. There's inherent risk in any NHL contract. Too short, and you could end up in the same boat we were in with Hossa after '09. Too long, and you could end up like the Isles with DiPietro. Somewhere in the middle, and you have to worry about renegotiating with them again in a few years and worrying about how big a raise you have to give him in order to keep him.

Well, the NHL is stuck with this "loophole" until the next CBA at the earliest. The current CBA doesn't expire until the end of the 2011-2012 season, so like it or not, it's the way of life for at least the next two seasons. IMO, I don't have a problem with the uber-length contracts. If it works as intended, then it's a great signing by the team's GM. If it backfires, they're the ones that have to live with it. And, for the record, I would be absolutely SHOCKED if the next CBA switches to the cap hit being a player's salary that particular year. I highly doubt that either the PA or the owners want that kind of setup, as neither side has anything to gain from it.

Ain't That A Kick in the Head - Dean Martin

Found this snippet on their Free Agency Blog on NHL.com (about 1/4 of the way down on that link). This is probably what they were referring to.

Now that's very interesting to me. Very interesting indeed...

Rafalski's NTC will make it harder to trade him than his $6m cap hit.

This contract is great for Brett Lebda. For the Toronto Maple Leafs? Not so much.

Godspeed Probie, you will be missed.

A full listing of signings so far. http://tsn.ca/nhl/feature/?id=25880

Not true. The only thing that the qualifying offer does is prevent our RFA's from becoming UFA's. Had Holland not submitted a qualifying offer, all of our RFA's would become UFA's. Other teams can still poach our RFA's. If the player or the team elects for Arbitration, THEN the player is off the RFA market.

Interesting tidbit from the story on NHL.com...

Dammit! You beat me to it! I agree. For the right price, and the right role, Winchester could be a good fit here.

I like the mobile version. Much more iPhone friendly! That said, two things I was wondering. The mobile version is the default blue & green. Is there any way you can update that to be more like LGW's standard color scheme? Also, the mobile version shows the member's picture instead of avatars. Is it possible to change that to avatars? Thanks again for all the hard work!

Somewhere, draperfan is weeping... Not a bad deal, considering the year he just had. Bertuzzi was one of only 3 players to play all 82 this year, which was not bad at all considering many questioned if he could even play 50-60 due to his injury issues. My only concern is that it's a multi-year deal. I'm always a bit leery of those contracts for guys over 35, because we don't want to get stuck with the cap hit if he retires mid-contract. Anywho. Welcome back, "The" Todd!

Absolutely, I'd take Byfuglien in a heartbeat. That said, he's only set to be an RFA after next season, so at the very least we would lose several draft picks (including first rounders) to sign him, or have to wait it out until the 2012 offseason to be able to sign him as a UFA. So the only other way to get him would be trade, and I HIGHLY doubt that Chicago would be willing to trade him away at all, much less for "a prospect" as you put it.

Avs, yes. Stars, eventually. Thrashers, not so much. The Thrashers came into existance in 1999 which was 3 years after the Rattlers first started playing. Now the Amarillo Gorillas (the team formed after the Rattlers went bust in 2002) had some elements of the Thrashers jerseys from time to time, specifically the asymmetrical sleeves. And they kept the Avs love with the "foot" secondary logo.

Nope. Not affiliated with the Avs in any way, other than a pretty easy to see knockoff of their jerseys. A few years later they used the "Star" pattern that the Dallas Stars used too. The team management wasn't much for originality...

Agreed. Also agreed. Not so much. Game 5 was hardly easy. I was there, and it was a hard fought battle, despite the overwhelming majority of shots in our favor. Flip scored about 5 minutes in, and it stayed that way until Nashville tied it up with about 45 seconds left. Despite the overwhelming majority of shots that we threw at Ellis, he stood on his head and made every save. You could cut the tension of the crowd with a knife. Everyone had the same thought, that we were going to have one of "those" games. Throw tons of shots, but get beat by two silly simple bad luck goals. In the end, only 2 goals went past Ellis. A laser of a shot from Flip, high glove side that just barely tucked in under the crossbar (sniper goal, no doubt), and Franzen's breakaway which was gift-wrapped due to a bad neutral zone defensive breakdown and a beautiful pass from Kronwall to Franzen. The two goals scored in that game were pretty goals, but by no means easy. If that game was easy, we would have won 7-1, instead of 2-1. Game 6 was scoreless until the later half of the 2nd period, and became 2-0 about 4 minutes into the 3rd. That game was close wire-to-wire too.