Monthly Archives: June 2010

Why did Guy Boucher choose Tampa Bay over Columbus? Elliotte Freidman of CBC sums it up best: “Word is the biggest reason was time, as in he's got more of it in Tampa. When Steve Yzerman took over, he preached patience. “It's going to take some time” was his mantra, repeating it often and to everyone. It's the right path for that organization.” Boucher will have time to build and mold Tampa Bay’s on ice product to his exact specifications. His coaching philosophy is one centered on a consistently aggressive offensive attack. Pushing the puck up the ice is a significant part of that, and it places a huge emphasis on a defenseman’s ability to skate, make plays, and pass the puck quickly and accurately.

There are big fish in the NHL free agent pond every summer. In 2008, the Chicago Blackhawks made Brian Campbell a $7 million man. That same year, the Rangers shelled out $39 million for Wade Redden. The Bruins gave the one-dimensional Michael Ryder $4 million per for three years. In 2009, Chicago gave Marian Hossa a career contract worth over $5 million per season. The Rangers took a major risk when they gave Marian Gaborik $7.5 million per season.

Just in the last few days, the St. Louis Blues got a “one in, one out” deal with Russian prospects. Evgeny Skachkov, whose agent announced that he signed an ELC with the Blues, signed instead a three-year deal with KHL reigning champions Ak Bars Kazan, while blueliner Nikita Nikitin signed with them for real, as reported on their official site.

But now it’s the NHL draft time and thus most of the attention is focused on prospects. Some time ago I wrote about Maxim Kitsyn, now I’m going to write about some underrated prospects. There are three players whose stock is rather low in North America, mostly because of the lack of visibility for scouts, but this doesn’t mean that they aren’t good players or have less potential than other, but more known, players.

“We have a trade to announce...” are the only words any hockey fan ever wishes to hear out of Gary Bettman’s mouth. There may be no more exciting off-ice situation in the NHL than the draft day trade announcement. There is no shortage of star players available at the draft this year – Mike Ribeiro, Tomas Kaberle, and Sheldon Souray to name a few. There are several premier soon-to-be-free agents whose rights may be up for grabs as well – Ilya Kovalchuk, Anton Volchenkov, Dan Hamhuis, Patrick Marleau, Paul Martin... the list goes on.