July 13, 2011
Jeff Angus
2011-07-13
Goldie Says: Speaking of Colorado, I checked out their (off-ice only) prospects development camp today. I briefly spoke with Calvin Pickard, Kent Patterson and Kieran Millan, then listened in on Duncan Siemens and Stefan Elliott chatting with the media as well.
Peter Mueller has been working out hard with zero symptoms. He’ll likely be ready to go at training camp this fall. Great news for Mueller owners and Colorado fans – best player I ever saw in the WHL.
Andrew Cogliano’s fantasy impact in Anaheim will be little, at best (at least in the short term). Right now, he’s a dime-a-dozen forward who has speed, and little else. Reminds me of Geoff Sanderson. He was a horrendous 40% on the draw last year, leading the Oilers in both faceoff wins and faceoff losses.
(addition: Geoff Sanderson later in his career – he was a productive sniper with the Whalers)
Cogliano could also benefit from a fresh start a la Dan Cleary in Detroit, but he hasn’t shown enough hockey sense at the NHL level for me to believe in him. However, it is really, really tough as a young player to develop in an organization that is consistently losing and playing for draft picks.
In Edmonton, it opens up a spot for a young center, perhaps Anton Lander or Chris Vande Velde? Gilbert Brule is in the mix as well, but his injury status remains an issue.
The Rangers are likely to add a veteran defenseman, and I don’t think Sami Lepisto is it (they are rumored to be interested in him). Lepisto has posted good AHL numbers, but he hasn’t done much offensively at the NHL level. He does everything pretty well, but nothing very well.
Right now, I’d have the New York depth chart as: 1) Staal 2) Girardi 3) McDonagh 4) Sauer 5) Del Zotto 6) Erixon 7) Valentenko.
They are rumored to be bringing back Steve Eminger, who is an adventure in his own zone.
Some NHL divisional stuff – it sounds like Detroit is moving to the East, and Minnesota and Winnipeg will play in the Central, according to Minnesota’s owner (not until 2012-13). The NHL will likely undergo a large-scale reorganization of the divisions, so at this point it’s probably just guesswork to piece together the rest of the league.
Great piece on Calgary’s shift in off ice philosophy with some recent hires. Also, a very Happy Birthday to Mike Colligan, who wrote it.
Made a big trade last weekend in my H2H keeper with Tim Lucarelli – sent out Martin Brodeur and John-Michael Liles for Loui Eriksson. I’ll have a post on the trade later in the week, as both of us expand on why we made the deal. I have a goaltending strategy I am going to try out this year – seems risky but may allow me to control a few of the scoring categories each week.
The Blues gave Jonathan Cheechoo a one-year, two-way contract. He’ll have to score 56 goals in training camp to have a shot at cracking the roster.
I wonder what’s in the water in Ornskoldsvik? Sedins, Forsberg, Naslund, and Zuccarello all star in this TV commercial: