1.) The Chris Pronger "Situation"
It's rare that a player will demand a trade only a season after signing a 5 year contract. It's even rarer that the player will do so on the heels of an extended run into the play-offs that saw him become the toast of the town. Of course, what made this story so titillating and therefore such great fodde
r for the mainstream media and bloggers alike was the total lack of clarity surrounding the thing. Not only did Pronger leave for vacation while charging his agent with the task of delivering the stomach-punch worthy news to the Oilers management, he also later refused to properly identify any of his reasons for demanding the trade in the first place. In the face of this lack of details and apparently inexplicable turn of events, the scandalous minds of the puzzled public went about filling the vaccum. What followed was all assortment of rumors and soap-operatic innuendo: Pronger's wife was unhappy in Edmonton because she's an American blue-blood; because she's isolated from her family; because Pronger had an affair with a local puck-bunny... no, wait, a local news anchor. The whispers piled up and were disseminated by way of messageboard, blog, phone, water-cooler gossip and newspaper. Eventually, though, the lack of any solid evidence (as well as threat of litigation, no doubt) disspersed the playground chatter and Pronger was dealt to the Ducks for Lupul, Smid and bunch of future assets. Now, in the wake of Pronger's "Benedict Arnold" Edmonton fans are left with little more than a gaping hole on their blueline and a debate over what unfavorable moniker will replace "The Orbs of Power".(Yes, that's Chris Pronger in the image above. No, I don't know what he's doing. Pic found here.)
2.) Wang's World
Not wanting to be out-done by Chris and his wife, the Islander's owner Charles Wang fired his newly minted GM Neil Smith (a month into his new 3 year contract) and hired medicore back-up goaltender Garth Snow as his replacement. I still haven't decided if this is more stupid than weird, but it's certainly a bit of both. To Snow's credit, he wrote an open letter to the unfortunate Islander fans that ackowledged the oddity of the situation. It remains to be seen, however, if he can handle the duties of being a NHL GM just as graciously. One of the ironies of this debacle is that Snow was slated to earn a salary of $750,000 as the Islander's back-up this year...which has now become a cap figure he'll have to work around during the year. My final hope, when it comes to this story, is that the NYI suffer a rash of injuries in the crease in the middle of the season, thereby forcing Snow to once again don his giant pads and become the first GM/player in NHL history (or at least, in recent memory)...
Party on Wang! Party on Garth!
3.) Defensemen and the Free Agent Frenzy
It was truly the Yea
r of the Blueliner when it came to cashing in on Unrestricted Free Agency. Zdeno Chara was the biggest winner (literally and figuratively) - he scored a 5 year, 7.5m/year contract with the Boston Bruins. Jovocop was coaxed to the join Gretzky's Desert Dogs for a mere $32.5 million over 5 years. JFJ followed the trend and scooped up Pavel Kubina for $5m/season and Hal Gill for $2.1m per year. Jay Mckee joined the hapless blues for $4 million a year and Willie Mitchell was enticed to the West Coast for $14million over 4 years. Filip Kuba, Kim Johnsson, Jaroslav Spacek, Ruslan Salei - all scored more than $3million/season for several seasons before the dust settled.In contrast to the manic spending that greeted the summer's onset, NHL GM's have suddenly become tight-fisted in the off-season's twilight. Recently, Duck's GM Brian Burke
chaffed against the relatively sane figure granted to Vitaly Vishnevski in arbitration, while the previously free spending Bruins have walked away from David Tanabe and his $1.25m arbitration award. Considering the league-wide market was valuing players line Salei and McKee at $3/4 million per season only a few short weeks ago, it's hard to fathom why guys like Tanabe and Vishnevski are left trying to justify contracts below $1.6 million a year. I guess the lesson here is: be part of the feeding frenzy early or you'll be left fighting for scraps.
4.) Trading Bert for Roberto
The Bertuzzi/Vancouver saga mercifully came to a close when sophomore GM Dave Nonis managed to deal Bert+parts for Lungo+parts shortly before the draft. The Deal gives the Canucks their first marquee goalie since...uh...ever...while Keenan managed to claim his coveted surly, gruff-speaking, back-of-head-punching power forward. The move will no doubt benefit both clubs and players - Bertuzzi can leave the Moore incident behind in the oppressive media fish bowl that is Vancouver, while Luongo will finally have the chance to lead a hockey-hungry franchise into the play-offs.
5.) Those Stubborn Russians
It's August 9th and there still remains a divide between the Russian Hockey Federation and the NHL regarding the player transfer deal. According to this article the IIHF-NHL agreement
...sets the financial sums the NHL sends to European federations in player transfers. The IIHF redistributes the money among those national federations and clubs that lose players to the NHL, using a formula decided by the IIHF and nationalIm not sure what's the onion in the ointment here - the level of compensation or the nature of the IIHF's "redistribution formula". Given that they seem to quibbling over a $200,000 transfer fee for Malkin, Im guessing it's the former rather than the latter. So much for crushing capitalistic greed, eh Comrade?federations.
The upshot for NHL clubs is an inability to bring over any of their Russian prospects. The most notable, of course, being the Pittsburgh Penguin's Evgeni Malkin, who looks like he'll be spending another winter across the pond (despite the Penguins desperate need for any help they can get). Beyond that, it's probable that almost every club has a Ruskie or two they'd like to re-locate to North America. While it looks like some players, like Edmonton's Alexei Mikhnov, may look for ways around the stalled IIHF deal, Im guessing most teams will have to go without many of their young Russian assets this season.
6.) Leopold in, Tanguay Out
Maybe this isn't really a "Top Story" per se, but it sure was big news for Flames fans. My thoughts on the Tanguay acquisition have been enumerated here and here. In addition, MudCrutch devoted a recent post to Tanguay at his site. One of the more amusing bits of news regarding this trade (from a Calgary perspective) is that Leopold will apparently miss the start of the season due to a hernia operation.
7.) NJ Devils Go Cap Crazy
Looking at the Devil's salary commitments for 06/07 is like witnessing a horrible car accident - oddly, perversely fascinating. Lou Lam has less than 60 days before the start of the season; 60 days to re-sign both Brian Gionta and Paul Martin and he has precisely -($2.495m) worth of cap space to do it. It's going to take a bit of GM wizadry to accomplish that feat, no doubt. So either a big ticket guy like Gomez or Rafalski is shipped out for some cheap prospects or Mogilny and Malakhov suffer sudden and inexplicable season ending injuries during training camp. Welcome to the NHL salary-cap era New Jersey!
Anyways, those are the top 7 (as I see it at least). This summer yielded a plethora of other interesting stories, of course: the Ottawa, San Jose, Chicago three way trade involving Havlat and others. The Rask for Raycroft swap. The baffling continuation of Belfour's career. Hasek's 3rd go-round in Detroit. But I think I got the top 7 covered.
As for the rest of the summer...now that Legace has settled on St. Louis, I guess the only story left is the unrestricted free agency of Anson Carter...*sigh*...the season can't start soon enough.
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