Legionnaire11

I don't think Hatcher is gone from the Flyers. In fact, didn't TSN rank him as the best Penalty Killer in the league last season? If his knee is better than last season (and it was even better than the season before), then he should be just fine.

hey all, sorry for not checking in often. I tried to stay off of here mostly during the playoffs and then the whole sale thing has had me tied down to the preds site most of the day. anyway. I don't think i'm going to make my 190 goal by the wedding (July 1). But i've managed to get down to the 205-210 level and stick here for a couple weeks. I like it. I've also been doing a lot of yard work, built a deck, stained a fence a 4" brush (old school) too, so I think most of the leveling out is because i'm getting more tone. thanks for all the support in the beginning, I don't think I could have stuck with things at first if I didn't know I had the LGWers to report to each week.

the Preds second year we took Brian Finley with the 5th overall pick. He spent nearly every season injured in the minors, finally got called up for a game two years ago, gave up 7 goals and is either in boston's system, or out of hockey now.

ESPN figures count total attendance. For the lease, it considers PAID attendance. There were about 1,400 free tickets per game last season.

still talking? actually I don't have a problem with you talking. I just wish you would incorporate some facts to back it up. give me a list of all the players hartnell has injured, and all the suspensions he's served because of it. I mean, he's only concerned with injuring others, so surely after 7 years in the league it should be easy to compile a lengthy list of these occurances. Memphis is one of the biggest draws in the CHL though. Still not enough to generate any buzz there. It's a big basketball town. Does your friend ever go to any Riverkings games? they've always had a decent team and a great atmosphere for basically A level hockey.

Nashville sold 12,000 season tickets. not deposits, full season tickets before they were granted an expansion team

true. playing 16 games against the Rags/Isles. the new york media is sure to nit-pick everything he does. And 8 games with pittsburgh, Hartnell could end up being Crosby's nemesis. or, seeing as he really isn't as dirty as everyone wants to believe, we won't hear much about him anymore. I have a feeling we'll see a post at some point in the future saying "Wow, Hartnell really dropped all the gooning and actually became a decent scorer with the Flyers". When really, he'll be playing the same game he always has, but since he's not going up against the Wings 8 times a year, you guys just won't be viewing his play with homer glasses. Crawford is a Major League ******* (thanks mr bush). I don't think Ruff is as bad as most people do. And Trotz, I don't think he tells players to go out and goon it up, but he definitely doesn't do anything to discourage it, which is just as bad. Now for the debate. Who is worse Crawford or Sutter? that's a tough one.

Fixed

Well, Leipold didn't negotiate the arena deal. Nashville built the Arena before the Predators were even thought of. Then they worked up the basis of the lease before they had a team. Leipold just happened to be the lucky guy who took them up on their offer. Actually, the Devils were all set to move down here in 97, but then they won the cup in 96 and their fan support shot up for a few years, so they stayed in Jersey. I also believe the practice rink was part of that deal. And it wasn't a brand new facility either, there was already an existing rink and all the city did was add a second sheet of ice to that facilitiy, it's also used for public leagues and open skating, so that part isn't a big deal. Leipold in general hasn't been a great owner. I mean, he's a great guy, nice, honest and just an every man type of guy. He let Poile and Trotz do their job and he just sat back and enjoyed the game as a fan. He treated everyone in the organization in a first class way and was always accessible to the fans. He tried to run the organization correctly, got a coach that was good at developing young players and building a good defensive system, a GM who wanted to build through the draft and build from the net out. All the things you really need to do in order to have long term success and build a solid organization. The problem is, that type of project takes a lot of time and money in a town like Nashville. It would have worked great in a traditional city where the fans and corporate dollars are more patient and knowledgable. But here in Nashville, we really needed to spend a little more in the first few seasons and get a couple of decent players in here to keep everyone entertained while the system was built up. We never got lucky in the draft, after Legwand at #2, we never drafted any higher than 5th. Atlanta and Columbus had a bunch of #1 picks, and the Preds were always picking in the lower half of the top 10, so we never got a Lecavalier, Kovalchuk, Heatley, Nash type of player.

speaking of Smithson, I don't have a link at the moment, but he just re-signed with the Preds. So there's one 3rd/4th line spot filled. like you said, up front we can get thin in a hurry. Our top two lines are going to be really good. But we'll need both of them to be good all season so that opponents can't key on one of them. If we get an injury in our top 6 forward, or one or two guys go in a long slump, we're going to be hurting. hey gordie... who knew we could just talk some nice civil hockey?

there aren't even 80 boxes in the place are there? didn't they say last week that the upper bowl was sold out? and then the next day it wasn't? nice! they're really looking good for an expansion team one day

jwo... did the Red Wings sell out all of their games from the very beginning????

hahaha, Hartnell has put guys out for the season DOZENS of times? I want to see the roll call on that one. List them up here. Might want to list all of Hartnell's suspensions with it too, because he's the biggest goon in the league he must be suspended a lot too right? or is the league office just so inept that they can't suspend the guys who most deserve it?

They should be more like the preds team from 03/04 that met the Wings in the first round. We're definitely not competing for the presidents trophy next season. But the 6th-8th spot in the playoffs is still very realistic. When the lockout ended, we came out as an all offense, wide up skating team and despite the regular season success, it was never a great system. Next season we'll have more grit and get back to the hard working, blue collar predators hockey that defined the first 5 seasons. Only difference is that this team is much better than those early expansion years. on a side note, I believe this leaves Vokoun as the last of the original predators unless you want to count Legwand in there since he was the first pick and did play one game in the first season. Forsberg was gone anyway. Kariya, it's hard to tell. They're going to talk to him, if he wants to come back then I think they get it done. He's always been a hard guy to read though. I have a feeling all the uncertainty will drive him away though. Vishnevski wasn't coming back because he never got on the ice, and many Preds fans wanted to rip Trotz a new one for that. Even David Poile apologized to VItaly in front of the team saying that when he made the trade, he thought he would get more playing time. Nichol wasn't coming back because he's a moron. He is a dirtier player than Hartnell and Tootoo. If he were re-signed, the coaches would scratch him every game. But Smithson I think is definitely coming back. He'll sign for less than $1M, and he's a great penalty killer. I don't think he'd get much attention from anywhere else. As for bringing in quality UFA's, we weren't really going to be in the mix anyway. The gameplan for this summer was to get bigger and grittier on the third and fourth lines. I think we'll get 2-3 guys on the cheap to fill that need, and maybe a big veteran d-man for the third pairing.

LeClair used to. He's the only guy i've seen in the last 12 years that is better than Holmstrom in that role.

that's where I was going with it. A skilled offensive defenseman, and a gritty goal scorer who plays in front of the net.

where is everyone getting the idea that I think the preds will be just as good as last season? I said "we're not dead yet". if anyone is overblowing it, it's the Wings fans who are saying that the preds are going to be significantly worse. look, we weren't going to sign either of these guys. We got back a first round pick for their rights. we still have a lot of good players on the roster. This is like the Wings losing Schneider and Holmstrom. Very, very, very good players and it would hurt the team, but they wouldn't drop to the bottom of the standings. 22 goals on a line with guys like Vern Fiddler, Jerred Smithson, Scott Nichol and Jordin Tootoo... yeah, he must SUCK!!

perfectly legal to trade a players rights. I'm surprised this kind of thing doesn't happen more often when a team has a specific target that they're willing to overpay for. Work out a deal, trade a pick for his rights and then sign him immediately.

we're not dead next year. we've still got two lethal top lines. Dumont - Arnott - Radulov Sullivan - Legwand - Erat still can fill in our fourth line and some third line with Abid, Fiddler, Tootoo, Smithson, Hordichuk and Nichol (some of them will be back). And then we need 1-2 third line free agents to fill in. Not bad. We also signed over a couple of promising euro players. Setzinger probably has a good shot at making the team. Plus Peverly and Leahy who filled in some last season. On defense. we still have... Weber - Suter Hamhuis - Zidlicky Zanon will probably be re-signed. We've got Nolan Yonkman and Alex Henry who are NHL ready in milawaukee or we could bring up younger guys like Kevin Klein or Cody Franson. and of course. Vokoun and Mason in net. all of that without signing a single free agent other than our own 4th line guys.

There is also some stuff in there that would indicate that the clause can't be inacted this summer (even though Leipold supposedly already has done it) because it states that in the event of a player strike or lockout, then the lockout season and the season following the lockout do not count towards the clause. The lockout basically reset everything and last season was, for all intents and purposes, the first season. And there was also some confusion on the part about the government buying tickets to make up the difference. It was assumed that it would be at the end of the season, if the team came up say, 300 tickets short of the average, that Metro could write a check to make up the difference. But then some people said that it wouldn't work like that and that they would have to actually buy tickets to the games during the season. But the wording says that they can "make up" the difference by purchasing that number of tickets at the "average ticket price". Which would mean that they aren't actually buying tickets to games, and can in fact (actually it would be the only way that it all makes sense) purchase those tickets after the season to make up whatever the difference is. So it seems that Balsillie must run the team in good faith (per the NHL), he cannot raise ticket prices above the NHL average (per the lease), this past season was only the first season that counts toward the 14k clause, and if there ever comes a time when he is able to enact the 14k clause (next summer at the earliest if we don't hit 14k) then Metro can simply make up the difference on the tickets and keep the lease in place. I can't wait for all of this to get into the courts and get a judge to interpret these issues. The sooner that all of this comes out, the sooner Balsillie will pull out of the deal.

here's something interesting in regards to all the people who have been saying that Balsillie will just come in and raise ticket prices to the point where it's impossible to average 14k. we (preds fans on our boards) finally got a copy of the lease. and there was this little nugget in there. It's guaranteed at this point that we'll hit 14k next season. We were only 200 away last season, and with the push we're having on tickets right now, we will easily blow away 14k. So that resets all of this "Cure Clause" stuff. So then you would say "well after that then the ticket prices will be jacked up and the team will move in 3 years". But according to the lease, if he raises tickets above the NHL average, then he can't use the 14k clause to break the lease.

The buzz has been growing over the last two seasons. Attendance has been up for the last two seasons, there have been more articles in the paper, a lot more predators talk on the radio, you see more car flags and stickers than ever before, more people wearing hats and shirts. It's not the best hockey city. But I think that much should be obvious. We're not Detroit, Philly or Toronto. We're Nashville. So don't act surprised that we're in the bottom third for attendance. Frankly, someone has to be there, and last time I checked Nashville is a non-traditional market that is still growing the game after just 8 seasons. So why there is such a big stink about our attendance and support is crazy. If we were heading into our 29th season instead of our 9th, and there were no signs of improvement, then you could say "look, they've had a team for a while, they've had a chance to grow up with the franchise, a generation has grown up with the team and now is in position to be buying tickets but the fanbase still hasn't grown". But no one wants to give us that chance. And seeing as how things are improving, and the fanbase is growing, I don't see where you can rip a team from this city so prematurely. we're trying to get people to switch allegiences from college football. Heck, we're not even trying to do that. We're trying to get them to fit a handful of hockey games into their schedule every year, just open up to the game and see what it's about. It's all relative. It's about letting the franchise take roots and letting a generation grow up with the team. There is that core group that jumped on hockey immediately. Just like there will be a core group who would jump on the Predators in Hamilton immediately. But they're not going to rival the Leafs fanbase right away. You're going to have to let the kids grow up, they won't know anything about a time before the Preds were in Hamilton, they won't be raised to worship the leafs and only the leafs. So the fanbase will grow when those kids are able to join in with the initial group, and the next generation will add more and so on. Same thing here, the kids in this area LOVE hockey. If we had another 15 years, I don't believe there would ever be another issue with attendance in Nashville again.

the thing is, we showed in the beginning that the town can support the team. We averaged 16,000 back then. Then the Titans came and made a run to the super bowl, and a lot of corporate support jumped over to that ship. Then the "Playoff Pledge" in the 5th season didn't pan out and a lot of the individual fans jumped ship at that point. But we've been building up again. Despite ticket price increases in the last two seasons, we've also seen the average paid attendance increase. So not only are more people going to games in Nashviille, but they're willing to pay more money to do so. and the team hasn't even won a stinkin playoff series yet. So, with attendance on the rise for a team who hasn't won anything yet, that's a good sign that the fanbase is growing. It would be pretty bad to abandon this market now.

so... it's okay if this happens in Canada. But not in Nashville? The Sens went bankrupt. But according to you, it's okay, because it takes time and a couple of generations before a solid fanbase can be established... But in Nashville, after 8 seasons. 8... you want to give up on us. ===================================================== as far as hamilton outselling the preds. there's a difference between putting down $500 for a deposit, and actually paying $2500 for a full season, year, after year, after year. and we have more than 10,000 anyway, the 9,000 is full season ticket EQUIVELENTS. two of the half season packages only count as one full season. four of the 13 game packages only count as one full season. So, there are a lot more fans who have bought into the team than the 9,000 number (obvious by the fact that we averaged 13,800 last season). So until Hamilton gets 14,000 full season tickets paid for, then please stop with the nonsense about how they've outsold Nashville.

nah, no matter what happens leipold is gone. he lost the fans on this one. the only ownership we would respond to positively now is this new local group. as for the cure clause. i wish that the city wouldn't fight it. This is actually perfect timing for it. we're all but assured to destroy the 14k mark next season, thus bumping the cure season for another 3 years and making it that much more difficult for Balsillie to move the team in that time. however, if they fight the cure and it gets put off for a season, balsillie will be able to raise ticket prices and downgrade the roster for that season. so we end up with 2 seasons of hockey instead of at least 4. Who knows how all the legal will play out. right now though i can say that the predators fanbase as a whole are focused on two things. 1. the first priority, above all else. getting 14k paid attendance. 2. the new thing, hoping that the deal falls through and the local group can buy the team.