You can add Ossi Vaananen and Ville Peltonen to the list of new KHLers. They each signed deals.

The Blues have signed Brendan Bell. He adds depth and could hurt Steve Wagner’s chances of sticking full time.

Wow, disregard the below. Ansar Khan is reporting that the below info from Sportsnet is inaccurate. So Hudler is indeed gone. Wild morning!

I put Hudler’s prediction back into the formula and he would be 49th in the rankings if I were to re-paste it.

Hudler has SIGNED a two-year deal with Detroit, keeping him out of the KHL. Per ontheforecheck. This was announced after I completed my rankings, unfortunately, so he is undervalued on them.

Very interesting article from Bruce Garrioch regarding Hossa’s big contract. It is the first one of it’s kind that takes the player out past the age of 40 and the NHL is investigating whether the team discussed him retiring with four years left, thus making the cap hit go away. If the team did that, then the NHL will make an example of them. Could be a $5 million fine and a loss of draft picks.

My opinion on Zherdev – if he gets anything close to what he wants in arbitration, you will see the Rangers walk away. Then you will see Zherdev discover over the next two weeks that no team in the NHL will give him the more than $4 million that he desires even as a UFA. After that, you will see him sulk and pout on the entire flight back to Russia. Then you will see him become a Top 10 scorer. In the KHL. If I were to predict anything at all on Zherdev, that scenario is it.

A very interesting article in Puck Daddy on the KHL here. The KHL really is a clown league and this stuff makes it look even more bush. Don’t get me wrong, I would love for the KHL to succeed as a strong professional league option, but forcing a player to sign a contract makes the whole ideology behind “signing” something completely moot. A forced signature, to me, is theft. It’s like holding a gun to my head and demanding 20 dollars…and then the next day announcing how I bought you a 20-dollar dinner. No I didn’t. Medvedev – you’re a clown. Anyway, the article is here and it gets into the Hudler, Dadonov, Parshin, Shirokov and Omark situations. Thanks to Scribe in the forum for drawing my attention to it.

What a fantastic forum we have here – it’s to the point where, between 8000 people, information is dug up and posted there faster and more thoroughly than any other source online.

Ole-Kristian Tollefsen has signed with the Flyers.

The Thrashers have signed d-man Mike Vernace and tough guy Josh Gratton. Neither player will see much NHL time.

The Sabres have signed the ECHL’s top goalie in JP Lamoureux. We’ll need to see what he does in the AHL, but I suspect that is where he will remain, barring a “Burrows Miracle”

Dustin Boyd signed his first one-way contract. He took less NHL money to do so, but I would think that his play combined with the contract will deter the team from sending him down anymore (like they did last March).

Tobias Stephan signed to play in the Swiss League next campaign.

Craig MacDonald has signed to play in Germany.

Kyle Wellwood has signed a one-year deal with the Canucks. It’s funny how he got nearly double what Boyd did…when I’m sure that even if their contracts were equal the Canucks would swap him straight up for Boyd in a heartbeat.

JS Aubin has signed to play in Germany as well.

Daniel Tjarnqvist has signed to play in the KHL.

Dobber’s Fantasy Guide will be released tomorrow night at 8pm ET and updated frequently right into October. So it really is the first guide out…and the last guide out.