The Sharks have acquired Brad Stuart in exchange for Andrew Murray along with a conditional seventh round draft pick in the 2014 NHL entry draft.

 

"Stuart played more short-handed minutes than any other Red Wings defender this past season. San Jose had the second-worst penalty-kill unit this season, a major factor I their first-round exit from the playoffs against St. Louis."

 

"Stuart, 32, had six goals and 15 assists in 81 games last season. He had a plus-16 rating and led the Red Wings in hits with 177 and was second in blocked shots with 115."

If he re-signs with the Sharks, it should really bolster that defensive unit. The Sharks’ blue-line corp were fine on the offensive side of things, but in terms of physicality on defense they couldn’t hold up to the Canucks/Blues/Preds. Stuart should add a bit more of the physicality back onto the blue line.

 

The Devils went from 3-nil down (1.8 percent of winning the series), to 3-1 down (9.5 percent) and are now down 3-2 (21 percent) thanks to an exciting 2-1 win over the Kings in Game Five. The making of the greatest comeback in history? Game Six heads back to LA on Monday night. UPDATE: The lady behind the Devils bench will be back for Game Six in the exact same seat. Focus DeBoer, focus… 

 

According to NorthJersey.com, in this year's playoffs, the Devils were 4-8 in Games 1 through 3 of their four series and 9-1 in Games 4 through 6. Make that 10-1. 

 

Jersey is the trying to become only the second team in league history to come back from 3-0 down to win the Stanley Cup. The other team to do it was the 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs.

 

Six of the last 10 SCF have gone to Game 7. 

 

Goalie comparison between Jon Quick: 1.13 GAA and .947 SP vs. Martin Brodeur: 1.87 GAA and .921 SP. Slight edge to Quick at the moment, but you've got to think that it'll be closer to 50/50 if Brodeur wins Game Six.

 

Another interesting stat to make a mental note of, Game One: nine for 10 (win), Game Two: 11 for 20 (win), Game Three: 10 for 15 (win), Game Four: six for 16 (loss) and Game Five: nine for 19 (loss). Those are the faceoff numbers for Jarrett Stoll. Maybe he's the key to success for the Kings.  

 

The SCF is still not drawing great ratings, but is steadily growing game-by-game according to SBnation. It just highlights how, despite the monstrous growth in league revenue the game of hockey still isn't garnering much attention out of the hockey "hot bed" cities. I wonder how much of "growth" is actually coming from the Canadian market being buoyed up by a strong Canadian dollar, as opposed to growth in casual "fanship"?

 

PuckDaddy comes up with five great reasons why viewership is down and I can't argue with any of them.

      

What do you know, the Glendale City Council voted 4-2 to approve the sale of the Coyotes to the Jamison group. Glendale will actually pay Jamison $300 million over 20 years or $15 million a season to "manage" the arena. Now the interesting question is whether or not it'll be enough to convince Shane Doan and Ray Whitney to re-sign in the desert or will they leave for greener pastures?

 

With the limited crop of UFA available and plenty of teams with sufficient cap space on July 1^st, you would have to think that they'll be in new uniforms next campaign.

 

The Coyotes experienced limited attendance with a "competitive" side. I wonder how those figures would change if they were to lose both Doan and Whitney and ice a "terrible" side. How much of that $15 mil will cover the financial losses that the Coyotes might experience if that happens. I sure hope that Jamison has deep pockets…

 

The Goldwater Institute tried it's best to block/delay the vote, but to no avail.

 

The Devils, who were in financial trouble at the start of the year, seem to have resolved their problems. Making the SCF surely helped in that department. Jeff Vanderbeek is looking to be firmly in charge as the majority owner after finding a new investor group to join the Devils' ownership to help solve the debt woes.

 

Will it be enough to keep Zach Parise in New Jersey?

 

NHLnumbers.com has a great write up about the bias of the HIT hit category in home arenas and could be something that you'd like to factor in for your leagues this season.

 

Team	Largest Home Mark ups
Chicago	154%
Phoenix	144%
Florida	139%
Toronto	136%
Washington	135%
Detroit	130%
Dallas	129%
LA	124%
Vancouver	123%
Philadelphia	123%

 

Angus brought this up yesterday, but I thought I'd give it another plug. Remember when you were growing up and there would always be that one kid that never left the ice and just kept on skating and skating. Alex Radulov is that kid according to ontheforecheck! They also speculate that might be one of the reasons why the Preds want him out of town.

 

Top-10 Ice-Hogs of 2011-12:

 

Name	TOI/Shift	League Scoring
Ilya Kovalchuk	59 sec	5th
Evgeni Malkin	58 sec	1st
Martin St. Louis	57 sec	17th
John Tavares	57 sec	8th
Alex Ovechkin	56 sec	36th
Brad Richards	55 sec	33rd
Matt Moulson	55 sec	21st
James Neal	55 sec	7th
Alex Radulov	55 sec	378th*
Steven Stamkos	54 sec	2nd

 

Interesting to see the two factors of shift time and point production in relation to each other.

 

Last week, I brought up the point of player's salaries "spiralling out of control" and had a strong debate with our fellow Dobberite Sentium. The David Jones signing proves my point. A four-year contract for $16 mil, which works out to be $4 mil per season for a player that's never garnered more than 45 points in a season is a huge overpayment.

 

I've seen a few arguments to justify the contract, 1) that he's a 20-goal scorer… 2) they need veteran leadership to help guide the "young kids"… 3) the UFA market is light this off-season, so he would have gotten more in the free market… 4) the Avs need offensive depth… 5) his $4 mil salary actually isn't that bad, it's only 5.7 percent of the salary cap, which is equivalent to a $2.2 mil contract when the salary cap was $39 mil…

 

Now for my rebuttal, 1) yes he is a 20-goal scorer, but at $4 mil you should probably be getting a consistent 30-goal scorer at that price not 20. 2) Can he really provide veteran leadership while playing just 15:45 per contest? I mean he hasn't proven to be a favourite of Joe Sacco in recent years. $4 mil riding the pine is a huge amount of money wasting away. 3) UFA markets might be weak, but that still shouldn't be a reason to overpay. Sometimes you need to weigh whether a price is too high or if it's going to be an albatross of a contract in future years. I've never bought into the "percentage of salary cap" argument. 4) Offensive depth can come from playing the young kids, Joey Hishon and Micheal Sgarbossa could challenge for spots in camp, but with Jones signed, the youngsters would be hard pressed to get much development time. 5) Yes a 2.2 mil contract back in 2005-06 might have been expensive, but it was alleviated because the salary cap increased at such a high amount (80% in seven years), which rose player salaries at such an exponential pace as mentioned in last week's ramblings. However, league revenue is beginning to stabilize and won't skyrocket as much as it did from 2005-06 till now (I don't foresee the salary cap rising to $102.2 mil).  So a $4 mil salary will essentially remain a $4 mil salary for the next couple of years, in fact if the league revenues drop, a $4 mil cap hit might actually prove to be worth more.

 

Capgeek has a list of comparable players at the $4 mil mark.

 

Teemu Selanne, Drew Stafford, Joe Pavelski, Brad Boyes, Jordan Staal, Derek Roy, Nik Antropov, Pierre-Marc Bouchard, Milan Lucic, Brendan Morrow, Patrick Sharp, Wojtek Wolski, Tuomo Ruutu, Scott Hartnell and Mike Fisher.

I wouldn't take Jones over any of the players listed above especially given his injury history and lack of consistent offensive production.

 

The negative of this contract is that it does set precedence for later contracts to be inflated. Jones gets $4 mil, and other agents will be all over this and argue that their clients will be worth $6 mil, and then others will argue that their clients are worth $8 mil. Suddenly teams that are "small market" teams can't even afford players like Jones anymore. All thanks to the NHL's great plan of jumping the salary cap (10 percent) from $64.3 mil to $70.3 mil in one year. Exactly how many teams can spend up to $70.3 mil and still be in fine financial position?

 

Kate Strang who covers New York for ESPN, has stated "progress" in contract negotiations between the Rangers and Martin Biron. With Biron as the backup, look for Henrik Lundqvist's workload to soften once again. Lundy had a 62-20 split with Biron and I wouldn't be surprised to see it closer to 57-25 next year, which will seriously limit his fantasy value as the number one fantasy goalie heading into 2012-13.

       

Mike Knuble, is done with the Caps, but opines that the next coach stop treating the "stars" like kids anymore and hopes that it's someone who operates between Bruce Boudreau and Dale Hunter. Who would fit the bill?

 

The B's are close to re-signing Chris Kelly and Gregory Campbell. It's a good depth move to help out the fourth line.  

 

Paul Maurice, who I thought was a great candidate to get another gig at an NHL head coaching job, is off to Russia. He's taking over Magnitogorsk in the KHL. He'll take former Penguin goalie, Tom Barrasso with him as an assistant coach.

 

Elliott Friedman stated on the Satellite Hotstove that he received an e-mail from a fan that Ondrej Pavelec has received a lucrative offer from St. Petersburg in the KHL. Timmy Thomas taking a year off and Pavelec possibly leaving is throwing curveballs for a few keeper league owners out there.  

 

Ryan Batty of CopperNBlue, doesn't understand the length of the Steve Tambellini's contract extension. In three words, neither do I…

 

Derek Zona also of CopperNBlue, analyses the Oilers' PP from last season and wonders if it was the "kids" that made it better or variance?

 

Ryan Murray tours Edmonton. Could it be a sign of things to come? He's already made stops to visit the Islanders and Canadiens. Another interesting tidbit near the end of the column, the Jackets have not invited Nail Yakupov for a visit. Are they that turned off by Russians or do they think that he won't fall to them at number two? Lisa McRitchie thinks that they are far more interested in Murray than Yakupov.

    

I'm a huge fan of John Davidson and what he did with the Blues. He's a great hockey mind and knows what he's doing. Columbus interviewed him for an executive-level position last week, and would be a huge asset to the organization if he joins. He would at the very least provide some much needed guidance to GM Scott Howson, who hasn't exactly experience much success since taking over the Jackets' GM position in 2007.

   

Ian Laperriere is set to announce his retirement after the Stanley Cup Final. He was never a huge point getter but his 1956 PIM ranks him 56^th amongst all players in league history.

 

Congrats to the Norfolk Admirals for winning the Calder Cup! They were a ridiculous team winning 43 of their final 46 contests. Not at all surprised that they won the Calder Cup.

 

If you've been following Angus' ramblings then you're probably well informed about the players that could impact fantasy leagues down the road. Cory Conacher, Tyler Johnson, Alex Killorn, Mark Barnerio and Dustin Tokarski are your main impact players.

 

Thinking outside of the box here, another candidate that could influence fantasy leagues down the track is Admirals coach Jon Cooper.

 

Thanks to Chris Peters on Twitter.

 

"Jon Cooper’s last 5 years as a coach: NAHL titles in 2007 and 2008, USHL title in 2010, AHL title in 2012. He was practicing law in 2003."

Seems like a winner everywhere he's coached, but I can't keep the thought of comparing him to "Gordon Bombay" out of my head.

   

Still slowly chugging along my Projections, Projections, We All Love Our Projections article for later this summer and there have been some interesting finds.

 

List of average point production per team during the last three seasons:

 

Team	Highest	Team	Lowest
Vancouver	703	Minnesota	530.3
Chicago	692	Florida	538.7
Pittsburgh	682	New Jersey	547.3
Philadelphia	673	Edmonton	551
Washington	669	Montreal	565.7
Detroit	661.7	Columbus	573
San Jose	659.7	Islanders	575.3
Boston	629	Los Angeles	578
Buffalo	624	Calgary	578.3
Tampa Bay	624	Ottawa	586.7
Winnipeg	606.7	Phoenix	588.3
Anaheim	605.7	Toronto	590
Rangers	602	St. Louis	592.3
Nashville	601.7	Carolina	593
Colorado	598.3	Dallas	598

 

Any surprises from the list? With the third and eighth ranked teams making the SCF I have a feeling that teams are going to take a copycat approach and watch for the goals to plummet for a fourth consecutive season.

 

Rangers Blog, where I get a bit of my inside information on the Rangers, is going on hiatus and possibly for good, which falls in line with Dobber's article from a few weeks back, so you want to become a fantasy hockey writer. Most of these blogs (including DobberHockey), are done for free and out of the passion/love of the game, so if you do value these sites and what they provide make sure you support their cause by purchasing any/all of the products that they provide. Much like any other business, if the provider gets burnt out or lacks the passion to do it anymore, they may very well disappear and you'll lose a valuable source for information. At the end of the day if you purchase a package worth $50 dollars, it might look pretty expensive as an initial cost, but if you factor in and break down what it really provides you with, it works out to be 14 cents a day over a course of a full year. Think about it 14 cents for daily ramblings, an article a day, the best fantasy hockey forum and fantasy guides available, along with direct access to the most knowledgeable/passionate fans of fantasy hockey. Of course you can take the other path and say well I get it all for free anyways, so why would I be stupid enough to pay for it? But if everyone thought that way, Dobberhockey could very well disappear just like Rangers Blog, and that would be a sad day for all of us.

 

Should you be so inclined, follow me on Twitter if you think that my article/tweets are useful.

 

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Think you’re tough? Try blocking a shot with your face… 

 

 

“I don’t score goals, I don’t do those nice little things out there, I do all the little stuff that people don’t see or don’t see on the scoresheet but the fans in Philly don’t miss it” Ian Lapierre

 

“He’s got the heart the size of a lion.”