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Ty Conklin and Red Wings Reunite for One Season

Jul 21

Posted by Eddie in News | No Comments

Reunited and it feels so good. The Detroit Red Wings solidified their goaltending situation after the retirement of veteran Chris Osgood with the free-agent signing of Ty Conklin. The deal is for one year and Conklin will receive a salary of $750,000. This will be Conklin’s second stint in Detroit, as he backed up Osgood in the 2008-09, going 25-11-2 with a .909 save percentage and 2.51 goals-against average.

Ty Conklin (in hat) celebrates a victory with the recently-retired Chris Osgood in 2009. Conklin signed a one-year deal to return to Detroit yesterday.

That season, Conklin and the Red Wings reached the Stanley Cup final for the second-straight season when they lost to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Strangely, Conklin played for the Penguins in 2007-08 when they lost to the Red Wings in the championship series. Conklin spent the last-two seasons in St. Louis where he backed up Jaroslav Halak last season. The Red Wings are pleased with the signing, as he is a solid backup and could give the Red Wings fan base more confidence between the pipes over Osgood, who has been injured often in the last two seasons.

Conklin has also played for the Penguins, Blue Jackets, Sabres and Oilers. He has won 91 games in 200 caps, including 16 shutouts. He has a 2.64 GAA and .908 save percentage for his career.

Osgood’s fate was virtually sealed ten days ago when the team re-signed Joey MacDonald to a two-year contract. GM Ken Holland couldn’t take the risk of having Osgood, 38 years old, had sports hernia surgery in January, back this season if they wanted to look towards the future and to get younger in goal. MacDonald, 31 years old, understands his role as the No. 3 goalie and will begin the season in Grand Rapids with the AHL Griffins. He will be the first goalie recalled to the big club should anything happen to 27-year-old Jimmy Howard or 35-year-old Conklin. The team is secure at the goalie position until 2013 when Howard and MacDonald become UFA’s. Should the team not bring back Conklin next summer, expect 21-year-old Thomas McCollum to move to the No. 3 role for 2012-13. McCollum made one appearance in the Red Wings last season.

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Free Agency Recap: Independence Day

Jul 4

Posted by Eddie in News | 3 Comments

Sunday was a quiet day on the free agency front, the transactions of note was defenseman Derrick Meech going from Detroit to Winnipeg. Meech was a regular in the lineup during the franchises appearances in the Stanley Cup Finals in 2008 and 2009, but has spent most of his time with the AHL affiliate in Grand Rapids since then. Another notable transaction was forward Niclas Bergfors switching conferences as he goes from Florida to Nashville.

The big bomb was dropped late Sunday night when San Jose traded star forward Dany Heatley to Minnesota for Martin Havlat. The trade was one of the biggest transactions of the early transfer period. The two were actually teammates with the Ottawa Senators the first seasons after the 2005 lockout. The trade will give Minnesota a franchise player, something they have not had since Marian Gaborik left in 2009. San Jose hopes to get someone with the playoff drive and experience that could help push them over the top as they have lost in the conference finals each of the last two seasons. Havlat has played in the postseasons twice since the lockout; in 2006 when Ottawa was upset in the second round by Buffalo and 2009 when Chicago lost in the conference finals to Detroit. Last season he played 78 games, scored 22 goals and recorded 40 assists. Heatley wasn’t as productive in 2010-11 as he was in 2009-10, but only two seasons in San Jose. Last season he scored 26 goals in 80 games but was largely absent during the postseason when he scored three goals in 18 games. During the 2010 playoffs he was even more absent when he lit the lamp 39 times in 82 games but scored twice in 14 playoff games.

Heatley also ranked first in the NHL in power-play goals (128) and game-winning goals (58), third in goals (325) and fifth in points (689) since he entered the League in 2001. Minnesota scored just 206 goals last season, the fifth-lowest total in the League.
Today on July 4, there were a few free agent transactions of note. Goalie Curtis McElinney signed with Phoenix. It will be his fourth-team in the span of his five seasons. The 6-foot-2, 197-pound goalie has made 67 NHL appearances in that time, posting a 18-26-4 record with a 3.13 goals against average (GAA) and a .898 save percentage. The free-agency pool for goalies is even smaller as several teams are looking for help in net.

In addition, Fan-attacking forward Rick Rypien is staying in Canada but is changing teams as he signed a deal with Winnipeg. He is 27 years old and played in 119 career games in the NHL with the Canucks from 2005 to 2011 where he has scored 16 points and 226 penalty minutes.

The Jets were pretty busy in the first few days of free agency, as they signed six players over the holiday weekend.

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Free Agency Recap: July 2

Jul 3

Posted by Eddie in News | No Comments

Yesterday wasn’t as packed with the number of transactions as Friday, but there was just as much fireworks and we haven’t even reached Independence Day here in the United States. The biggest move of the day was goaltender Tomas Vokoun signing a single-season contract with the Washington Capitals. The other highlighted move of the day was the end of the Brad Richards sweepstakes as he is taking his talents to Broadway to play with the New York Rangers.

The signing of Vokoun leaves hockey fans outside of the District scratching their heads as they were led to believe the departure of Semyon Varlamov would leave the goaltending duties to youngsters Michal Neuvirth and Braden Holtby. But Caps GM George McPhee said he wanted to add an “elite veteran goaltender”, which I consider to be a stretch because although Vokoun is a solid goalie, he isn’t considered elite as he has been stuck on a bad team the last four seasons in Florida. His numbers last season were 22-28-5 with a 2.55 goals-against average and a .922 save percentage. His save percentage has been .919 or higher in each of the last six seasons. He also has the second-best save percentage (.923) among the 15 NHL goaltenders who have made at least 5,000 saves in the past four years. His contract is reported to be around $1.5 million.

The New York Rangers came out winning the Brad Richards sweepstakes, with one of the biggest names on the free-agent market heading to Madison Square Garden with a reported nine-year, $60 million contract. The deal will reunite Richards with bench boss John Tortrella, the man that made Richards a Stanley Cup champion and Con Smythe Award winner in 2004 with Tampa Bay. Richards long said he wanted to play for a franchise with stable ownership, something he didn’t have at the end of his tenure with Tampa Bay and Dallas. Throw in the benefit of playing in a large market and one of the Original Six franchises and it was a perfect match for both sides.

Believe it or not, it wasn’t all about the money because the Rangers weren’t offering the most money. Quite a few teams outbid New York including Toronto, Los Angeles, and Calgary but those teams couldn’t offer everything else that he desired. The Rangers expect him to center the top line and the power play unit with Marian Gaborik playing on the right wing.

In other news coming out of Toronto Sunday morning, the Maple Leafs and Nashville Predators announced a four-player swap, with Brett Lebda and minor league forward Robert Stanley going to the Music City in exchange for Cody Franson and Mathew Lombardi.

The deal does come with stipulations, the Leafs will send its fourth-round pick in the 2013 Entry Draft to Nashville if Lombardi plays a total of 60 games or more over the course of the next two seasons. In the event that Lombardi plays less than 60 games in that span, Nashville will instead send its fourth-round selection from the 2013 Entry Draft to Toronto. Either way, a fourth-round selection in 2013 is at stake in the deal.

Lombardi, 29, was impressive during his 53-point season in 2009-10 with Phoenix, but after signing a three-year deal with Nashville last July he managed to play in only two games due to a concussion suffered in a preseason game. Franson scored 8 goals and 21 assists last season for the Predators.

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Free Agency Opening Day Recap

Jul 2

Posted by Eddie in News | 1 Comment

Yesterday was one of the first day of NHL free agency. Several teams made a splash, none bigger than the Philadelphia Flyers. The Flyers not only win the Jaromir Jagr sweepstakes, but they also acquired defenseman Andreas Lilja and forward Maxime Talbot. Because of those moves, they had to part ways with Ville Leino, Sean O’Donnell, and Daniel Carcillo. Goalie Brian Boucher was the odd-man out when the team signed Illya Bryzgalov last week. Boucher signed with Carolina. Kris Versteeg was also traded to Florida after a short 27-game stint in the black & orange.

Joel Ward made $1.5 million in Nashville in 2010-11. He will average double that amount in Washington over the next four years.

In addition to the Flyers, the Washington Capitals overhauled their roster today as they parted ways with forwards Andrew Joudrey, Marco Sturm, and Boyd Gordon and upgraded with Joel Ward and defenseman Roman Hamerlik. Ward previously played with Nashville where he scored 13 points in 12 playoff games in 2011. He scored big with a four-year, $12 million deal. Hamerlik had 31 assists on the blue line in Montreal last season, and landed a two-year, $7 million contract in the District.

Two teams also added multiple goalies, with those being Columbus (Mark Dekanich and Curtis Sanford) and Colorado (J.S. Giguere and Semyon Varlomov). Other notable backstops that changed teams include Mike Smith (Phoenix), Brian Elliott (St. Louis), Jose Theodore (Florida), Mathieu Garon (Tampa Bay), and Peter Budaj (Montreal).

Coming off the best season of his career, 27-year-old James Wisniewski returns to the Central division after spending last season with Montreal and the New York Islanders. He signed a six-year, $33 million contract with Columbus after the Blue Jackets traded for his rights (similiar to Chrisian Ehrhoff earlier this week) from the Canadiens. The Habs traded his negotiating rights for a seventh-round draft pick in 2012 on Wednesday, but with the condition that if Wisniewski signs with Columbus the compensation would increase to a fifth-round pick.

Of teams in the Central, the Blackhawks made the most moves, as they signed O’Donnell and Carcillo from the Flyers to one-season deals. They also signed veterans Andrew Brunette and Jamal Mayers to one-year contracts as well. Brunette came from Minnesota where he scores 18 goals and recorded 28 assists. The team also signed 32-year-old Brett McLean, who spent the last two seasons in the Swiss League.

Detroit only added one player in forward Mike Commodore from down Columbus. The bizarre angle of this story is that Commodore and Red Wings head coach Mike Babcock were previously together when Babcock coached Anaheim’s AHL affiliate and had Commodore as a player. Back in ’09, Commodore, 31, publicly accused Babcock of having being an obstacle in Commodore’s career. Commodore told the Detroit Free Press Friday he spoke with Detroit’s bench boss and the issue is now currently water under the bridge.

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Best of the Rest: Remaining Free Agents

Aug 18

Posted by Eddie in Fantasy, Prospects | No Comments

Now that the whole Ilya Kovalchuk saga is temporary over until New Jersey figures out another strategy for re-signing the superstar forward, there are quite a few unrestricted free agent’s still out on the market. With teams beginning training camps in about a month, it will be interesting to see what team’s will take fliers on veterans before the season starts due to injuries to signed players or other circumstances.

Forwards:

We all know that Kovalchuk is still out on the market, but there are still several proven players with the ability to get the puck in the back of the net still without a team to call home. Not many of these players will crack the top two lines of a team, but if a GM is looking for a role player to anchor a third line (similar to Mike Modano’s role with Detroit), he should look at the following players:

Lee Stempniak

Stempniak scored 48 points last season with Toronto and Phoenix. He was a trade deadline acquisition and it paid off for the Coyotes. The 28 goals he scored was a career-high.

Brendan Morrison

Morrison didn’t even crack the teens in goals department as he scored 12 last season. He did have 30 assists, which is the most for a remaining free agent not named Kovalchuk. He could be useful for someone lacking set-up men.

Tim Kennedy

Still young at age 24, he was waived by his hometown Sabres after going to arbitration. He’s most likely a fourth-line player who still has ability to get better offensively. The next team he latches onto could make or break his career as he’s at the age where he can still make it in the NHL but his time is running out.

After playing with Montreal last season, Marc-Andre Bergeron is the best UFA on the market.

After playing with Montreal last season, Marc-Andre Bergeron is the best UFA on the market.

Defensemen:

Marc-Andre Bergeron

There’s something the GM’s around the league know that we do not. Bergeron scored 34 points last season  for Montreal but is still on the market. He does have a niche for producing on offense but he is a liability in his own zone. He needs to become better in his own zone to be more successful.

Freddy Meyer

A small defenseman at 5’10″ and 192 lbs., Meyer does have good speed and decent offensive skills. He scored 15 points last season for the Islanders. He is an efficient hitter for his size, but it could be his size that keeps him as a fifth or sixth defenseman.

Aaron Ward

A little over the hill at age 37, Ward stands out among the remaining free agent defensemen as he is the least injury prone compared to guys like Willie Mitchell, Kim Johnson, Paul Mara and Brian Pothier. You won’t see Ward on the scoresheet but he will shut down the attack in his own zone.

Goalies:

Anti Niemi

Chicago walked away from Niemi’s arbitration award despite winning 26 games for the Blackhawks.

Jose Theodore

Theodore had his best regular season since he was a Hart Trophy winner and contender with Montreal. He won 30 games for Washington, yet the Capitals served him his walking papers.

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Free Agency Starts at Noon Eastern

Jul 1

Posted by EB in News | No Comments

First and foremost, happy Canada day to those viewers from abroad.

Today starts the first day of free agency period at high noon eastern. Top players like Ilya Kovalchuk, Sergei Gonchar and Evgeni Nabokov are only few names of many that are out there for general managers to persuade to play for their clubs.

The wheeling and dealing is expected to be good this year with many big names out there. HWB will keep you updated with recaps of some of the big names taken, how it will impact the team signed to, and our overall impression of the whole event.

Sit back and enjoy the fireworks!

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