Chicago committed highway robbery. While Dale Tallon’s fingerprints are all over this team, congrats to Stan Bowman for bending the new GM in Atlanta over the barrel. He not only gets rid of the contract of Dustin Byfuglien, but also Sopel’s – and Ben Eager is up for a bit of a raise as well. Meanwhile, they land a brilliant prospect and a top pick. I’ll have full analysis of this deal up shortly.

Bugg will be in transit most of the day, but on Thursday (June 24th), celebrate Draftmas Eve  with a Q&A Day in the forum. Seguin or Hall? Gormley or Fowler? McFarland or (shudder) Kabanov? Get all the answers there as Bugg pops in throughout the day.

I can’t remember who I heard this from on Twitter (sorry), but I heard that the asking price for Dustin Byfuglien is a first-round draft pick. That seems a little steep considering his cap hit and how it helps the Blackhawks. But you gotta set the bar high.

Jordan Staal had a second surgery on his foot. The post-gazette calls it a “minor procedure” and he is on crutches for another three weeks.

Our own Brent Lemon has an article in the latest USA Today NHL magazine. I can’t dig up the article online, but the magazine cover can be seen here.

According to this, Sergei Gonchar may have been traded to San Jose. Glean from that what you will, but I don’t see a fit there.

Brad Staubitz signed a two-year deal with the Wild. With Derek Boogard soon to be a UFA, Staubitz could potentially get you 150 PIM.

Now that I’ve had time to digest things, I can calmly say that I am extremely disappointed with the Hockey Hall of Fame selection committee. Selecting a woman (two, actually) is the right move, of course, but this is what really angers me – why wasn’t this new “two women per year can be selected” rule not mentioned earlier? Why were Granato and James complete shocks to everyone in the hockey media? Why, when names like Nieuwendyk, Gilmour, Oates, Ciccarelli, Mogilny and Bure bandied about, were other names like Granato and James not also bandied about? How easy would it have been to digest if the builders and the players yesterday were names mentioned a lot over the last two weeks? Instead, only one name was announced that had been mentioned before – Dino. And congrats to Dino, I’m happy for him. He was about seventh on my list…but I’m happy for him. It’s an honor, no question.These are media people who are well in the “know”. Did the members of this committee read Bob McKenzie’s article, or listen to Nick Kypreos or Pierre LeBrun or Scott Morrison bang off names of candidates and then sift through every hockey archive until they could dig up completely different ones? And then not tell anyone about them? And then to purposely make the inevitable Pat Burns entry wait another year or two – because he’s getting in, mark it – in favor of a deceased former owner, is just shameful. The entire process stinks.

And why so many builder entries every year? To me, it just seems like one will do – a great coach or GM. The second one seems to be for the millionaire owners/executives who have all their million dollar toys and they just want some fake honor that they bought so they can have some bragging rights. It’s so easy to get in as a builder, our own Shoeless was under consideration this year. But he didn’t offer enough of a bribe ;)

My Hall of Fame is in my mind. I know who was great and who wasn’t. Let the “children” have their toys and let whoever they want into their sandbox.

Join us Friday evening for a live chat for the Draft’s first round. Many members of the DobberHockey crew will be there taking your questions, including myself, Angus, and the Prospects Report contributers.

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From now until June 24th, Angus will be running a 2010 NHL Entry Draft contest. Send him an email of your first round mock. The entry that closest mirrors the first round on June 25th will win an autographed Shane Doan 8×10 photograph. The rules are simple – one through 30, send your picks. If you guess the correct player, earn one point. If you guess the correct player and the correct position, you will be awarded three points. For example, of your top five is Hall-Seguin-Fowler-Tarasenko-Gunbranson, and the NHL's top five picks are Hall-Seguin-Fowler-Gunbranson-Tarasenko, you will be given 11 points (three for Hall, Seguin, and Fowler in the correct position, and one for each of Tarasenko and Gunbranson for having them in the first round

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