General Sports Water Cooler

in before Richards to the Rangers

and yea Philly is gonna be scary

oh and the Sather pulled another sick trade stealing the Flames top prospect NHL ready defensemen Tim Erixon and a 5th round pick for two 2nd rounders and Roman Horak who projects as a solid 3rd line winger down the road.

Erixons father Jan played for the Rangers and is apparently still pretty tight with the organization. Our defense is incredibly young deep and talented. If Del Zotto gets back to his rookie year form we literally have our top 6 set for the next like 5 years if we wanted.

Yea it's a good get but they are going to have to do some serious cap clearing to fit bryzy. Like 2 or 3 good players. I would start to worry about the flyers back end pretty soon as pronger is getting up there and is getting significant back surgery and kimo looks to be declining. That pronger contract could be a killer in a year or two if he retires.

My hope is that the caps sort of revamp their bottom 6. I would love a guy like scottie upshall who can score and really pursue the puck. I also would like to swap Hannan out for someone a little quicker but if they brought him back for a short term deal I would be ok with that.

I would be stunned if Poti counts against the teams cap next year. He will either retire or be on LTIR. He lives in Cape Cod and has played in a pro summer league with several guys I know for a long long time and Poti told them there is no chance he is playing in the summer league this year with the way his groin feels.

Ummm yes he 100% can if that's what he wants to do and has clearance from Ted to spend the money. The rangers did it this year with redden and it has been done a fee other times in the NHL. I personally don't think it will come to that anyways.

If he's fully healthy and the caps are fully confident his groin injury won't come back, fine he's more than a serviceable defnesemen. If poti and/or the caps still have their doubts about his health, then they need to make other plans.

Looks like there could be realignment beyond just shifting teams to accomodate the Atlanta to Winnipeg move. From ESPN:

Those who like the two conference/six division format of the NHL should enjoy it while it lasts. With the Atlanta Thrashers moving to Winnipeg, a major realignment could be in play after next season. If Gary Bettman gets his way.

Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun reports the NHL commissioner presented a proposal for a major overhaul in terms of the league's set-up for the 2012-13 season during Tuesday's board of governors meetings :

"Sources say under Bettman's proposal, the league will have four divisions: Pacific, Midwest, East and South. It's believed the Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets would both get their wish to move to the East conference ...

... Teams would play a balanced 82-game schedule with home-and-home against teams outside their division.

The top four teams in each division would make the playoffs. The first round would be divisional play, the teams would then re-seed for conference play. Bettman's idea would not affect a East-West Stanley Cup final matchup.

With 30 teams, one division in each conference will have eight squads while the other will have seven ..."

Although this collection of changes is still only in the discussion phase, a realignment is expected by all involved and desired by most.

Not sure how they will do this. With 15 teams slotted in the Western Conference let's suppose they are the Pacific and Midwest. I can only come up with 14 without moving someone in the East/South assuming they are moving Detroit and Columbus. They should just go back to old names (Patrick, Norris, etc) since somebody won't be fitting in with their geographical division. It is so much easeir to put 14 teams in the West with 7 team divisions (moving COL from Pacific to MW) and 16 teams in the East with 8 team divisions. Would be an imbalance in terms of finishing top four in the division.

Pacific (8)
SJ
EDM
LA
CAL
PHX
ANH
VAN
COL

Midwest (6)
MIN
WPG
NSH
CHI
STL
DAL
???

East/South (16)- Who gets moved to the Western Conference? That would determine the divisions and the Atlantic Division would likely get split, but how considering you have the three NY area and two PA teams which are all natural rivalries.

MTL -E
OTT- E
TOR- E
BOS- E
BUF- E
DET- ?
CLB- ?
PIT- ?
TB- S
FLA- S
CAR- S
WSH- S
PHI- ?
NYR- ?
NYI- ?
NJ- ?

Well, I'm guessing that paves the way for the Bryzgalov signing

Thank god. Goodbye Carter. Mr playoff no show. Helloooooooooooooo Bryz!!!!!!!!!

what a great day.

GMillerTSN Gord Miller
Done deal, and it's a blockbuster. Phi trades captain Mike Richards to LA for Brayden Schenn and Wayne Simmonds.

on the lighter side of offseason

The schedule came out today as well. Caps open 10/8 against Carolina. Atlanta moving to Winnipeg really screws up the schedule.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capitals-insider/post/capitals-release-schedule-for-2011-12-regular-season/2011/06/23/AGKGEfhH_blog.html

Bryzgalov official.

9 years, $51 million.