NHL: 2016-2017 Season

[JohnBM01]

I decided to open a thread on the new season of hockey in the National Hockey League on the night of the 2016 NHL Draft. This will be my umbrella post for all action ranging from the 2016 NHL Draft to whomever hoists the Stanley Cup in 2017. I almost forgot tonight was the NHL Draft after telling fellow GTPlanteer RedDragon that the draft is tonight.

So GTPlanet, welcome to the new season thread for NHL Hockey! The real action doesn't begin until at least September with the Preseason games, but we can still make any kind of random nonsense until then. So... have at it!

 

[JohnBM01]

Top pick in the 2016 NHL Draft went to the Toronto Maple Leafs, and they selected Auston Matthews. During the broadcast, I was feeling confused at the notion of Pavel Datsyuk being traded to the Arizona Coyotes when I've always heard Datsyuk was going from the NHL to play in Russia. There were at least ten Americans drafted in this year's NHL Draft. That was the most Americans drafted since 2010.

To all new coming players that got drafted... welcome to the NHL! Prepare yourself for madness!

More draft action to come starting tomorrow morning with Round 2.

 

[prousonhairy]

The Blues trades Goalie Brian Elliot to the Calgary Flames for a second round draft pick, and a conditional 3rd round pick. A little surprised, but it was the right thing to do.

He's 31 years old, and as good as he can be at times, he's way too streaky and when he chokes, he's down for several games. Instead of just having a standard issue bad game, it's like he has major confidence issues and has a stretch of 4-5 games where he's real bad.
Some of that may have to do with chubby mcfly (Hitchcock) and his silly tandem goalie system the blues have been using for a few years now.

Speaking of coaches, I'm still not sold on this Mike Yeo guy either, i think they should of waited to see what other coaches became available,or showed interest. There's a bunch of coaches that would never have done that deal,(assistant for a year then head coach) just because a lot of coaches can't stand Hitchcock. It just seems like a rushed decision to me.

 

[JohnBM01]

I read Jamie Benn of the Dallas Stars was signed recently to a three-year extension with the Stars. Benn is a solid player. He's surely the backbone of the Stars offense.


There will be the World Cup of Hockey later in September, but there's still a lot you can do to get excited for this upcoming season. You know... see some videos of goals and saves. Maybe watch a few good hockey fight (or hockey brawl) videos. Or on the melancholy side, watch a few videos of late hockey players, such as "Mr. Hockey" Gordie Howe. Just keep yourself interested as a hockey fan.

 

[AnthonyD1993]

I'm amazed people took Datsyuk's contract. Ken Holland looks like a genius for getting more cap space by getting rid of Pavel's contract.

 

[JohnBM01]

The 2016 Hockey Hall of Fame has this lineup:

* Eric Lindros
* Sergei Makarov
* Rogie Vachon
* Pat Quinn

More info: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/13cb...wait-over-he-headlines-hockey-hall-fame-class


Congratulations to all whom got into the Hall of Fame.

 

[JohnBM01]

Thanks to a trade, Shea Weber has a new home... and so does P.K. Subban. Shea Weber is now with the Montreal Canadiens, and P.K. Subban is now a Nashville Predator. Seems like a good deal for both teams.

 

[Joel]

Thanks to a trade, Shea Weber has a new home... and so does P.K. Subban. Shea Weber is now with the Montreal Canadiens, and P.K. Subban is now a Nashville Predator. Seems like a good deal for both teams.

It's horrible for Montreal, it might be the worst trade in team history. They just traded away one of the top 5 defensemen in the world at age 26 for a declining Shea Weber who is substantially worse already, is 31 years old, and is under contract for another DECADE. This deal will only get worse as Weber slows down and declines. He is not the type of player that will age gracefully and was already a negative possession player away from Josi. The husk of Andrei Markov will not be able to prop up Weber like Josi and Suter did in Nashville.

This trade is an utter disaster of biblical proportions for Montreal. It's honestly baffling how they managed to screw things up this badly. I wasn't confident in Bergevin as the GM but despite my pessimism about him I would never have even fathomed he'd make a decision this horrible with essentially no redeeming qualities. They got the markedly worse, older, and quickly declining player, took on a hilariously bad contract, and got no futures in return. I'm at a loss for words. It's an unmitigated disaster.

I'm done with the Habs until the current coach and GM are long gone and replaced with someone modern thinking who can handle a billion dollar franchise.

 

[aarror]

It's horrible for Montreal. They just traded away one of the top 5 defensemen in the world at age 26 for a declining Shea Weber who is substantially worse already, is 31 years old, and is under contract for another DECADE. This deal will only get worse as Weber slows down and declines. He is not the type of player that will age gracefully and was already a negative possession player away from Josi. The husk of Andrei Markov will not be able to prop up Weber like Josi and Suter did in Nashville.

This trade is an utter disaster of biblical proportions for Montreal. Terrible beyond belief. I'm done with the Habs until the current coach and GM are long gone and replaced with someone modern thinking who can handle a billion dollar franchise. This might be the worst trade in Habs history.

Man, I thought Jim Benning was an awful GM but Bergevin and Chiarelli have made him look like a genius today. I can't believe the Subban trade, on so many different levels. I feel sorry for all the Habs fans out there.

 

[Patrick]

Pretty sure that was the most eventful hour in NHL history. Bomb after bomb on twitter. Going to be great when Edmonton gives Lucic a 7 year deal now.

 

[Joel]

Man, I thought Jim Benning was an awful GM but Bergevin and Chiarelli have made him look like a genius today. I can't believe the Subban trade, on so many different levels. I feel sorry for all the Habs fans out there.

Worst part is both teams would have been better off trading with each other. Hall for Subban straight up would be pretty reasonable value, age, and contract status-wise for both teams. Habs defense would be super weak in that case but the value is close and you could make other moves to bring the defense to a decent level over the summer.

Instead we saw Subban traded for a has-been and Hall traded for a never-was.

 

[Sanji Himura]

Concerning Datsyuk: Like someone mentioned, Detroit wanted to clear cap space because Datsyuk's salary for this upcoming year would go against the cap. Detroit tried to get an exemption from the NHL to clear his cap hit, but no dice from the league. (They wouldn't approve it because Datsyuk was going to still play in Russia.) So they had to trade to get him off the books.

As for Jamie Benn, I'm glad that he signed that extension. He is one of the more talented Stars captains since Mike Modano, and he is a critical part of this team. It is a shame that we can't get rid of his brother, however. He always made a better door than a window when he plays defense.

 

[JohnBM01]

I read that the Minnesota Wild signed Eric Staal to a three-year deal. I read on Yahoo! Sports that this deal for Staal is going to be better than the $3.5M USD deal he previously signed to. All Wild fans will have to hope for is that Staal can keep up the fine talent to maybe make the Wild better than last season. I don't know about Central Division-winning talent for Minnesota, but... you may never know. Of course, Central Division only as long as Dallas or St. Louis doesn't have anything to say about that. Oh, and don't forget about that team called the Chicago Blackhawks in this discussion.

 

[88GTA]

@Patrick called it, 7 years for Lucic to Edmonton.

Late to the party, but Taylor Hall to the Devils for Adam Larsson?

 

[Valkyr1313]

Eric Staal is here, and Chris Stewart is back in the Wild locker room. For once, General Manger Chuck Fletcher (from here on out GMCF) hasn't stuffed things up yet this off season. His draft picks are decent. Free agency is going well, with 3 reasonable signings in Staal, Stewart, and Alex Stalock and the price was pretty good for them as well. I would have maybe gone down a year on the Staal deal. Perhaps 2yrs at 2.5-2.75 given that is is already like 30, but I'll take 3 years at 3.5. The cool thing is that with the buyout of Thomas Vanek, we saved 5million dollars in cap space this season. The salaries of Staal and Stewart this season are roughly 4.65million. We got 2 players for the price of 1!

I feel like there may be a trade happening with the Wild. I don't think it'll be a blockbuster like people think, however, there could be something happening. I keep hearing rumours of one of our d-men being traded, with the most popular names being Jonas Brodin, Matt Dumba, or Marco Scandella. Out of those lot, Jonas Brodin could be the most interesting for other teams. He's a shutdown d-man, left shot, 6ft, 190lbs, he's very fluid on his skates, thinks at a high level. He's the guy that you don't notice during the game, as he may not make an offensive splash, but he will never mess up defensively. He has the potential to be a top pairing d-man, and he already eats up a lot of minutes on the Wild. He was used as a B top pairing on our team alongside Matt Dumba. During the season, he managed to play in 68 of the 82 games and only managed to put up 7points, so he won't set the world alight with scoring, but he only had 18PIMS during the regular season, so he stays out of the box. The reason the Wild would be looking to trade away a top 2 or top 4 d-man is because we have one of the deepest pools in the league. The players we have that are under 30 are quite a list: Jared Spurgeon, Marco Scandella, Matt Dumba, Mike Reilly, Jonas Brodin, Christian Folin, Gustav Olofsson, Loius Belpedio, etc. What we really need though is some more scoring forwards who are younger and are willing to grow with the rest of our team.

 

[Sanji Himura]

Florida Panthers got, now former, Dallas Star Jason Demers on a five year, $22.5 million contract. the AAV of the contract is $4.5 million. Is Jim Nill trying to nuke this team?

 

[Boston77]

It's horrible for Montreal, it might be the worst trade in team history. They just traded away one of the top 5 defensemen in the world at age 26 for a declining Shea Weber who is substantially worse already, is 31 years old, and is under contract for another DECADE. This deal will only get worse as Weber slows down and declines. He is not the type of player that will age gracefully and was already a negative possession player away from Josi. The husk of Andrei Markov will not be able to prop up Weber like Josi and Suter did in Nashville.

This trade is an utter disaster of biblical proportions for Montreal. It's honestly baffling how they managed to screw things up this badly. I wasn't confident in Bergevin as the GM but despite my pessimism about him I would never have even fathomed he'd make a decision this horrible with essentially no redeeming qualities. They got the markedly worse, older, and quickly declining player, took on a hilariously bad contract, and got no futures in return. I'm at a loss for words. It's an unmitigated disaster.

I'm done with the Habs until the current coach and GM are long gone and replaced with someone modern thinking who can handle a billion dollar franchise.

Shocking to trade a player of that caliber and a community favorite.
I, however, am quite pleased. The Bruins only have to face him twice now!

 

[JohnBM01]

I'm wondering... do you think dealing P.K. Subban to Nashville and Weber to Montreal could end up having the ramifications of this trade blow up right in Montreal's face? And if so, could Canadiens' management be fired (or who should be canned) should Montreal have a lackluster season?

From one Original Six team to another... do you see the Bruins having a better 2016-2017 season than last season, Boston77?

 

[Valkyr1313]

@Sanji Himura we'll send you Brodin plus Eric Staal for Jamie Benn or Tyler Seguin and Brett Ritchie

 

[Boston77]

I'm happy that we signed Backes and that we locked up Tory Krug for a few years. But, we still haven't dealt with our pathetic defensive situation as much as I like.
So, I see another long year for us Bruins fans. Playoffs, I doubt it.

 

[Sanji Himura]

List of players who has elected to take salary arbitration this year:

Arizona Coyotes
Michael Stone

Colorado Avalanche
Tyson Barrie
Mikhail Grigorenko

Detroit Red Wings
Jared Coreau
Danny DeKeyser

Minnesota Wild
Jordan Schroeder

Nashville Predators
Calle Jarnkrok
Petter Granberg

New York Rangers
Kevin Hayes
Chris Kreider
Dylan McIlrath
Jonathan Miller

New Jersey Devils
Kyle Palmieri

Ottawa Senators
Mike Hoffman

Philadelphia Flyers
Brandon Manning
Brayden Schenn
Jordan Weal

St. Louis Blues
Jaden Schwartz

Tampa Bay Lightning
Alex Killorn
Vladislav Namestnikov

Toronto Maple Leafs
Frank Corrado
Peter Holland
Martin Marincin

Washington Capitals
Marcus Johansson

 

[Sanji Himura]

Here is the first effort to legislate fighting out of hockey. The AHL announced their new rule changes for this upcoming season, and to abbreviate:

1) Can't call timeout after icing
2) Fighting at drop of puck is an ejection
3) 10th fighting major = 1-game suspension (I assume that it is automatic)
4) Teams will wear light jerseys at home until Christmas and darks after that

 

[88GTA]

Devils reach a deal with Palmieri.

 

[JohnBM01]

Only recent bit I'll share is that Pavel Datsyuk recently signed a two-year deal to play in Russia's KHL. Datsyuk was quite solid for the Red Wings. So best wishes to P. Datsyuk with his new team.

Seems like among the players taking salary arbitration, the team with the majority players who took arbitration are the New York Rangers. Most others have about three players on arbitration at most. As for the whole taking fighting out of hockey go, some of those changes seem ticky-tack. I mean, I don't condone fighting in hockey, but it is as much a part of hockey like hard fouls in basketball. I'd only regulate this among players who would rather spend more time fighting than actually play hockey. I'd regulate this mostly among thug players on the ice rather than the ones who are enforcers or knuckle up every now and then.

 

[Valkyr1313]

So, yesterday, was the 1st public scrimmage of the Wild training camp. We got to see all of the young players who hope to try and be a part of the best team in the NHL this next season. The players who really impressed me were Alex Tuch, Adam Vay, Sam Anas, Joel Erikson-Ek,and Louis Belpedio. Alex Tuch is big forward at over 200lbs. He is physical and extremely good with the puck. The best libe of the scrimmage was Anas-Erikson-Ek-Tuch. They were fast, physical and super good at puck movement. Anas is a bit undersized but with Tuch and Erikson-Ek he's super effective.

 

[JohnBM01]

Jamie Benn of the Dallas Stars had surgery recently on one of his core muscles. He should be ready to go for the 2016-2017 season. I (as well as the Dallas Stars) would hate to see Jamie Benn get banged up or shelved for a huge amount of time. This guy is part of what makes Dallas such a dangerous team. When I glanced a bit on Twitter, his recovery will take about six weeks. So nothing too bad or out of the ordinary. Then again, later in September is the World Cup of Hockey in Toronto.

After not having too many heavy hitters in the most recent playoffs, I'm sure the Minnesota Wild will be looking to have some extra great secondary players to step up for some of their banged up players. These new folks trying out for the Wild should make the team a bit better than last season.

Victor Rask signed on to join the Carolina Hurricanes earlier this week. Any relation to Tuukka Rask?


With this Texas heat, it's pretty cool (no pun intended) to talk about some good old hockey. If you need a hockey fix, just be sure to look online for some good hockey videos, whether it's highlight packages, famous moments, or of course... good old hockey fights and hockey brawls.

 

[JohnBM01]

The Tampa Bay Lightning signed Alex Killorn to a seven-year, $4.45M USD deal recently. Yep- he is so PAID. Or at least I read it was going to be a $4.45M USD deal.

You know how I recommend you all check out some past videos just to stay fresh with hockey? Well, I saw a few videos recently. I looked up folks like RedDragon's beloved Zach Parise, Pavel Datsyuk, the tandem of Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane, and Jamie Benn. The Parise video I saw was when he recorded a Hat Trick hosting the Calgary Flames late last season to a 6-2 victory. The highlight of my time seeing videos, though... was watching Jamie Benn of the Dallas Stars. That dude can fight! He's both a Captain and an Enforcer in addition to being a solid offensive threat for the Dallas Stars. Tell you what- I want a guy like Jamie Benn on my team. You can use someone who'll be consistent on offense while also not afraid to knuckle up if provoked.

Something else I also recommend to pass the time is to see some of the old NHL games shown on NHL Network. I saw bits and pieces of the 1982 Stanley Cup Finals between the New York Islanders and the Vancouver Canucks for example. There's nothing like vintage hockey.

 

[Sanji Himura]

Brad Richards announced his retirement today after 15 seasons in the NHL. He played parts of those years in Tampa Bay Lightning, Dallas Stars, New York Rangers, Chicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings recording 298 goals and 634 assists in 1126 career games.

 

[JohnBM01]

Yeah. All the best to Brad Richards in his retirement. He's quite the journeyman playing for some quality teams. Hall of Fame for him, perhaps?

 

[JohnBM01]

A few notes to pass along...

* Goalie Petr Mzrazek re-signed a 2-year deal worth $8M USD recently to stay with the Detroit Red Wings.

* A fellow named Jay Rosehill, formerly of the Toronto Maple Leafs signed a deal to play hockey in Scotland. Never realized anywhere in the United Kingdom that there's hockey. Apparently, this guy is quite the enforcer. So I'm sure those blokes in Scotland should be pretty careful not to get on Rosehill's bad side.

* Matt Dumba of the Minnesota Wild is an unsigned restricted free agent. I'm not sure whether or not the Wild kept him or not.

On an off-topic note, I curiously looked up a game between the Colorado Avalanche and the Detroit Red Wings. A video I saw was a brawl between these two back on March 26, 1997 in Detroit. The Joe Louis Arena saw some haymakers, ground pounding, and some MMA-style takedowns. Folks like Claude LeMieux and Patrick Roy got dirty with Detroit. Crazy even when goalies go at it. I swear it seemed like every player on the COL and DET roster had at least one fight in this "Brawl in Hockeytown" game. Every hockey team needs at least one enforcer. You need that one player or those multiple players not afraid to knuckle up when you have somebody showing up your team or don't respect your team. Both teams basically had EVERYBODY be their own enforcers for their respective teams.


Keep watching those old videos and old highlights to stay fresh with hockey!