June 10 2015

Dobber

2015-06-10

Rambling about LeBrun’s Rumbling; Why the Oilers would be smart to offer sheet Hamilton; and more…

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So one of the hockey feeds that I subscribe to is Pierre LeBrun’s ‘Rumblings’ on ESPN. (And yes – the ‘Ramblings’ were a thing looooong before the ‘Rumblings’ were even a twinkle in his eye). I haven’t subscribed to it long, it’s one of my newer adds. So I open up my Feedly to get some material for the ‘Ramblings’ and I see like 50 Rumblings posts. I go through them and each one is a thought. I know that clicks rule the Internet, but now things are getting silly. Click-bait is one trick . The Bleacher Report slideshow is another trick to get clicks. But now we’re separating single thoughts into complete articles?

Though, to be fair, when you go to his Rumblings blog, the columns are so short (200 words or so) that you don’t have to click a ‘read more’. You can just scroll down and see his last 10 entries. Since it’s June and there was no hockey Tuesday, I’ll Ramble about LeBrun’s Rumbles. Here goes…

Item 1 – Kings looking to trade Mike Richards.

Well duh. This has been going on for months. There are no takers. But LeBrun suggests that another team could buy him out – and the Kings would give up another asset (pick or prospect) to compensate that team for the favor. No, Richards doesn’t have the magic. It won’t come back. He’s down the same trail of decline that strikes some players at an earlier age, be it due to injury or whatever. Off the top of my head, that list also includes Scott Gomez, Martin Erat, Tomas Fleischmann, Brad Richards, etc. I have a Band-Aid Boys list and a Windex Wonders list – what list should I call this one?

Item 2 – Offer sheet for Dougie Hamilton?

Because the Bruins are up against the cap and Hamilton can easily command well over $6 million per year, the thinking is that teams will consider making him an offer sheet. And the main candidate is the Oilers because a) Peter Chiarelli is their GM and his last job was GM of the Bruins b) The Oilers desperately need the skill set that Hamilton has c) The Oilers have cap space d) If Edmonton drafts McDavid and they get Hamilton, then they can afford to lose the five first round picks (or whatever the compensation is) because their days of picking in the Top 5 are over for the next decade.

The Oilers don’t plan to re-sign Derek Roy. Well duh. How can any Oiler fan fault them for that? Yes, he kind of had a career rebound there, especially early on. And yes, he had ‘some’ chemistry with Nail Yakupov. But do you think Yakupov will click a tiny bit better with, uh…Connor McDavid? Because I honestly think that Ryan Nugent-Hopkins – Jordan Eberle – Benoit Pouliot will play together. A McDavid/Yakupov/Hall second line would be so sweet.

I released my Fantasy Prospects List last night – the last one before McDavid takes over the first slot by a mile. And then McDavid will continue to rule the first slot through August, September and October before he graduates prior to the November one. The real question is – where will he rank in the big one? Where will he rank in my Top 300 Keeper League Players list?

Well that’s it for Jussi Rynnas. He never did get much of a chance with Dallas as they gave a job to an inferior goalie in Lindback, and then acquired a capable backup in Enroth – but to me that was due to Rynnas not playing very well at the AHL level. So Rynnas is gone now, signed to play next year in the KHL.

And TJ Galiardi has signed to play in Sweden’s second league.

The big news from yesterday, however, is from Glendale. The Arizona Coyotes are fighting for their NHL team. Again. Here is a great (and brief) summary of the last 15 years of the franchise, as well as what’s going on today. The city council will vote on ending their 15-year agreement – cancelling the contract because … well, we can only speculate. Council is legally barred from disclosing their reasons. Ownership will fight it, of course.

But the NHL will be in four new cities within four years, in my opinion. Two because of expansion and two because of the team moving. Do the math.

The Triplets are so clutch. They seem to do this every time. Listen to the crowd’s cheers still going after Chicago’s goal…and then sudden silence when TB scored 13 seconds later (goal cam view is cool, too):

UPCOMING GAMES

Dec 27 - 19:12	DET	vs	TOR
Dec 27 - 19:12	BUF	vs	CHI
Dec 27 - 19:12	CBJ	vs	BOS
Dec 27 - 19:12	N.J	vs	CAR
Dec 27 - 20:12	DAL	vs	MIN
Dec 27 - 20:12	STL	vs	NSH
Dec 27 - 21:12	UTA	vs	COL
Dec 27 - 22:12	S.J	vs	VGK