Oilers defense pairing for next season

From Dave Staples of the Cult of Hockey:

Charlie Huddy told Dan Tencer of 630 CHED that the Oilers plan to go with Smid
paired up with Denis Grebeshkov to start, also Lubomir Visnovsky and Tom
Gilbert, as well as Steve Staios and Sheldon Souray.

Read the entire post here.

Looks like a pretty solid top six to me.

Are old free agents worth the price?

From Dave Staples of the Edmonton Journal:

In the summer of '07, there was a group of old hockey players with great reputations that could be signed as free agents, exciting names that excited fans across the NHL: Michael Nylander, Jason Blake, Paul Kariya, Keith Tkachuk, Brendan Shanahan, Bill Guerin, Chris Drury, Brian Rafalski, Sheldon Souray, Ryan Smyth, Roman Hamrlik, Ray Whitney, Todd Bertuzzi.

But, after one season, how many of these players provided good value for the teams that signed them?

Read the entire post from Cult of Hockey here.

Staples makes a sound argument for being extremely cautious when throwing big money at aging free agents.

News You Can Use Late in the Day

1. Sheldon Souray's season is official over after undergoing shoulder surgery.
2. Mike Toth profiles Brent Ashton, the most traded man in NHL history.
3. John Ferguson Jr. has joined TSN for their Trade Deadline coverage.
4. Bob McKenzie breaks down the Sens-Hurricanes trade.
5. Jim Kelley with his Good, Bad and Ugly column. Strangely enough its not about Jarome Iginla, Cory Sarich and Dion Phaneuf.
6. Darren Eliot nominates Bruce Boudreau as his pick for the Jack Adams Trophy.
7. Scott Burnside likes the winning touch Commodore and Stillman bring to the Senators.
8. USA Hockey is getting ready to celebrate Hockey Weekend Across America.
9. The weekly release from the USHL.
10. Brandon's Colby Robak is quickly moving up the draft charts with his strong play.
11. Interesting article about the benefits of downtown arenas.
12. Ryan Gunderson is getting noticed in the ECHL, with sweet deer in the headlights pic.
13. The NHL's best bargains.
14. Taking Notes breaks down the fines handed out by team in the WHL. Good to see Regina, the town that rhymes with fun, representing.
15. TSN has a team by team preview of the trade deadline.
16. Check out this video on how to end your relationship with the Toronto Maple Leafs.
17. A Saskatchewan sawmill worker from Prince Albert (in a can) will shoot for a chance to win $1,000,000.
18. It turns out Sean Avery is sensitive.
19. Mark Seidel of the Hockey News profiles the projected 11-15 picks in this year's NHL draft.
20. David Toews of Shattuck St-Mary's headlines this week's hot list.
21. The Hockey News jumps on the bandwagon of people waiting to fellate the Detroit Red Wings, who seem to get Obama-like reverance in the hockey world.
22. Tyler Arnason has revived his career in Colorado.
23. CBC Sports with an interesting read on former OHL'er Sean Courtney.
24. Check out this story about Steve Yzerman and a "sick" little Wings fan.
25. A profile on Canada's gold medal winning team from the 1948 St. Moritz Olympics.

News You Can Use Late in the Day

1. An interesting article from the Stars' website chronicling the origin of NHL team names.
2. Pensblog does a pretty humorous run-down of last weekend's outdoor game.
3. TSN has the story about tomorrow's Canada-USA world junior semi-final.
4. The NCAA rankings from Inside College Hockey.
5. Ryan Smyth is out for 8 weeks with an ankle injury.
6. Jonathan Toews will not require surgery on his knee.
7. The Globe and Mail is reporting that Kyle Wellwood will be again be a healthy scratch.
8. Tim Wharsby notes that USA Hockey could use a little PR refresher, after making only 3 players and the coach available to the media.
9. The Senators have assigned Nick Foligno to Binghamton.
10. Sheldon Souray is injured again, but Ales Hemsky is back skating.
11. Peter Loubardias details that well kept secret that is the World Under-17 Championships.
12. The SJHL announces its All-Star rosters.
13. Jim Matheson answers reader questions.
14. The NHL celebrates Willie O'Ree's 50th Anniversary.
15. Musings from the desk of Michael Farber.
16. The Flyers have put Jim Dowd and Rory Fitzpatrick on waivers.
17. Hockey has taken root in Atlanta.
18. Alan Muir of SI notes some changes that Canada should make in preparation of tomorrow's semi-final.
19. The Kings have told Manchester Monarch Brian Boyle that he is moving back to center from defense as the team searches for production.
20. Bob Snow takes a look around the NCAA Divsion 1 hockey programs.
21. Wisconsin Badger teammates are now rivals at the World Junior championships.
22. Jonathan Bernier is not happy with Team Canada's coaching staff.
23. The weekly release from the USHL.
24. Teppo Numminen's heart seems to be a-ok.
25. Former Flames' goalie Jamie McLennan tells us about playing hockey in Japan.

News You Can Use Late In the Day

Due to time constraints, News You Can Use Will be abbreviated today.

1. Roberto Luongo is day to day with a rib injury, so the Canucks have recalled Drew McIntyre from Manitoba.
2. Sidney Crosby has won the 2007 Lou Marsh Award.
3. A profile on Angelo Esposito.
4. Cast your vote for Sportsnet's Athlete of the Year.
5. Brendan Morrison's consecutive games streak will end tonight.
6. The quotable John Tortorella.
7. The first day of Team Canada's camp has a few bumps today.
8. Eric Duhatschek wonders if Scott Niedermayer will start a trend amongst veterans.
9. The weekly release from the USHL.
10. Jonathan Tavares is the focus at Team Canada's camp.
11. An annonymous group of 4 NHL'ers is skating on Thermablades.
12. Pierre Lebrun says Sergei Zubov deserves some recognition.
13. Sheldon Souray returns to the Oilers lineup tonight. Allan Rourke will sit and Mathieu Roy is on waivers.
14. Your ECHL fix.
15. A profile on Tyler Myers of the Kelowna Rockets, a top prospect for this year's draft.
16. Ken Campbell writes that Sweden and Finland are likely to pull out of the NHL-IIHF transfer agreement.
17. The Czech roster for the World Junior tournament will have a CHL flavor.
18. Kukla thinks that the NHL needs to get back to playing wide open hockey, and forego the endless stream of proposed rule changes.
19. The London Knights are experimenting with Akim Aliu at defense.
20. Playing in Florida isn't all its cracked up to be.

For Illegal Curve, I'm Kyle Kosior.

Morning Musings

Due to the high number of articles this morning, I am going to skip my usual preamble.

On to the morning papers:

• Shawn Horcoff may not be penciled in on the Oilers' number one line, but he will still play on the top powerplay unit and kill penalties. To his credit, Horcoff is not complaining about being demoted from the team's top line.
• All the youngsters were impressive for the Oilers last night versus the Flames writes Robert Tychkowski of the Edmonton Sun.
• Sheldon Souray takes it personally when people put down the city of Edmonton and the province of Alberta.
• As Steve Gorton writes, Olli Jokinen is coming into his own as captain and leader of the Florida Panthers.
• Dan Boyle suffered a freak accident in the locker room and the team will be without his services for 3-6 weeks.
• Injured Mike Van Ryn and Steve Montador both skated on their own yesterday in an effort to get ready for the team's first regular season game.
• After an impressive rookie campaign, sophomore Anze Kopitar is looking to improve upon last season's terrific numbers; Lonnie White of the L.A. Times has the story.
• Most families hate to see their children fight, however, the Boogards are a different breed writes Michael Russo.
• The newest line of Fiddler-Arnott-Dumont is gelling at Predators' camp writes John Glennon of the Tennessean. Meanwhile, the Predators made more cuts on Saturday and have now trimmed their roster down to 28.
• Saku Koivu think that the Habs need to work on their powerplay. The Habs went 0-for-5 on the man-advantage in their 2-1 loss to the Sens on Saturday.
• The Rangers' forward combination of Gomez and Jagr needs more time to click writes John Dellapina of the New York Daily News. The Rangers left much to be desired in their 5-0 defeat to the Flyers on Saturday.
• Sean Bergenheim and Charles Wang have put their differences behind them and Bergenheim is looking forward to a having big season with the Islanders.
• With Sheldon Souray gone from Montreal, Jason Spezza picked a new Habs' defenseman to pick on and that was Mark Streit.
• Christoph Schubert impressed a number of scouts who were taking in the Sens/Habs pre-season game on Saturday.
• Many fans are unhappy with the look of the NHL's new uniforms writes Hugh Adami of the Ottawa Citizen.
• Wayne Gretzky was very happy with the way his team's youngsters performed in a 6-5 victory over Dallas on Saturday.
• Because the new uniforms repel moisture, players are noticing all of their equipment is having to absorb more sweat than before writes Dave Molinari of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
• The Pens lost to the Red Wings 5-2 on Sunday.
• The NHL is looking to grow its brand across Europe writes Tim Panaccio of the Philadelphia Inquirer.
• There is plenty of competition in Detroit for the final two roster spots writes George Sipple of the Detroit Free Press.
• As David Pollak of the San Jose Mercury News explains, there are four players fighting tooth and nail to win the Sharks' sixth defenseman job this training camp.
• The Blues were able to sign Keith Tkachuk and Paul Kariya for the same price it would have cost to sign Scott Gomez writes Jeremy Rutherford of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The Blues defeated the Thrashers 3-2 on Saturday night.
• According to Mark Zwolinksi of the Toronto Star, the best case scenario for a Kyle Wellwood return is 3-4 weeks. However, Paul Maurice thinks we should know more about the situation in the next 2-3 days.
• The Leafs are considering lining up Chad Kilger as the team's number two center. The adjustment may not be as significant for Kilger as people thing because, as Kilger points out, he started his career as a center.
• Damien Cox of the Toronto Star opines that the 2005-06 NHL season was the exception rather than the rule in terms of increased offensive hockey.
• Not unlike just about every game last season, the Canucks asked too much of Roberto Luongo as the team was defeated by the Sharks 3-1 on Saturday.
• Patrick Marleau is opting to put last season's playoff struggles behind him and is looking forward to 07/08 writes Ben Kuzma of the Vancouver Province.
• Mike Modano is only six points from passing Phil Housley and becoming the all-time points leader for American born players.
• Chris Clark has moved from a scoring role, back to his old checking role and is not in the least bit complaining.
• The Columbus Dispatch has a Q & A with the Blue Jackets' owner.
• With Jose Theodore nursing an injury, long-shot candidate Tyler Weiman may begin the season as the Avs' backup goaltender; Andrian Dater has the story.
• As Craig Custance of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution explains, Keith Tkachuk has only good things to say about his time in Atlanta.
• The Hurricanes lost to the Predators 4-1 on Saturday; Luke Decock of the News Observer has the recap.
• While making the Sabres' opening day roster seems unlikely at this point, Patrick Kaleta only has one gear and he is not going to change his style of play just because his chances to make the team are slim at Sabres' camp.
• Kevin Paul Dupont's usual Sunday morning gem of an article can be found here.
• Dupont also provides us with a recap of Saturday's Bruins/Leafs contest and notes from around Bruins' camp in this morning's Boston Globe.
• Newcomer Peter Schaeffer has developed great chemistry with Marc Savard in Boston training camp thus far.
• The youngsters were flying on the ice for the Flames as they took on the Oilers on Saturday night. While the number one line of Iginla-Langkow-Tanguay was put together for the first time this pre-season and didn't disappoint.

For Illegal Curve, I'm Richard Pollock.

Morning Musings: Exhibition Overload

After watching TSN and Sportsnet on Thursday night, I began to wonder whether the NHL was already in the middle of the regular season. Not only are there pre-game reports (held live at the arena no less) previewing meaningless exhibition contests, but in the evening, the highlights are looped so that the highlights from these games are shown twice in a one hour show. Does anybody else consider this to be overkill? How can TSN justify showing exhibition highlights of a Sens/Capitals game when there are four tremendous division/wild card races taking place in Major League Baseball? The increased television exposure of every training camp/pre-season moment is unnecessary.

Additionally, why are you showing us who the exhibition scoring leaders are? Exhibition scoring leaders rarely tear it up when the games actually matter. If TSN and Sportsnet cut the exhibition highlights, or at least, showed them after meaningful games in other sports have been highlighted, I would be one happy fan.

On to the morning papers:

• Mike Brehm profiles Martin Brodeur in this morning's USA Today.
• Vesa Toskala was not sharp in his debut writes Dave Shoalts of the Globe & Mail.
• Kyle Wellwood was scratched from last night's contest because of a minor groin injury, however, coach Paul Maurice is not overly concerned.
• Dave Feschuk of the Toronto Star wonders why Wayne Gretzky won't talk about the Rick Tocchet issue with the press. (Writer's note: Why does Gretzky have to answer questions on this topic?)
• Jannik Hansen will be out of the Canucks' lineup 4-6 weeks with a broken thumb.
• Luc Bourdon is being outplayed by a number of other Canuck defenders who are vying for a spot on the Vancouver blueline writes Jason Botchford of the Vancouver Province.
• Taking his family's needs into account, Glen Metropolit is hoping a decision on his future is made sooner rather than later at Bruins' camp.
• While Manny Fernandez had a fairly positive debut, the Bruins were defeated by the Devils 3-0 on Thursday night.
• Dennis Wideman possesses plenty of skill but the key to his development may be his decision-making ability; Stephen Harris has the story in this morning's Boston Herald.
• John Vogl of the Buffalo News reports that Teppo Numminen had successful heart surgery and is now resting comfortably.
• In less serious news out of Buffalo, coach Lindy Ruff is experimenting with splitting up his top defensive pairing of Tallinder and Lydman and putting each with a more offensive defenseman.
• As Michael Russo of the Star Tribune explains, Wild prospect James Sheppard made some positive plays in his NHL exhibition debut but also made a big mistake which left Jacques Lemaire fuming.
• Marian Gaborik is wondering who is going to be centering the top line in Minnesota this season.
• Losing a significant amount of scoring this off-season, the pressure is on the big guns in Nashville to carry the scoring load writes John Glennon of the Tennessean. The team's defensemen are also going to try and do their part to make up for the lost offense.
• Wings' coach Mike Babcock says the seating arrangement in the team's locker room is not by accident.
• Colby Armstrong made a point of thanking the fans of Pittburgh for their support. While defenseman Kris Letang was 'sent down' to the secondary group at training camp.
• Mike Richards will be used as the checking line center in Philadelphia this season.
• Sami Kapanen had an adventerous return to Philadelphia because of visa problems.
• The Capitals were defeated by the Senators 5-4 on Thursday night in Ottawa.
• When Andy Murray arrived in St. Louis last season, Eric Brewer took his game up a couple notches. As Jeremy Rutherford writes, Murray wants to see Brewer take his game up another notch by becoming a little more offensive minded.
• There may be a numbers crunch on the blue line in Anaheim but Joe Dipenta can be sure he has one important supporter in Randy Carlyle.
• Jean Lefebvre of the Calgary Herald details the battle for the final forward roster spot on the Flames and the competition is heated.
• Randy Sportak of the Calgary Sun has the story of David Moss and his off-season training program in Russia this summer.
• Lorenzo Perez takes a closer look at Glen Wesley, the elder statesman on the Canes' blueline, in this morning's News Observer.
• Jonathan Toews is lucky he only has a small crack in his index finger and not a broken hand writes Chris Kuc of the Chicago Tribune.
• A couple of pleasant surprises at Avs' camp are making the roster decisions that much more difficult for coach Joel Quenville.
• Joel Bouchard had an epiphany while he was laying sick in a hospital bed with a serious infection; now he is back healthy, and is attempting to crack the Blue Jackets' defense. (Writer's note: It is hard not to like Bouchard after reading this article. Lets hope he makes the Columbus defense.)
• The Stars have one of the top backup goalies in the entire NHL and as Mike Heika of the Dallas Morning News points out, a good backup may mean the difference between just making the playoffs and finishing on the outside.
• Sheldon Souray's bomb from the point definitely impressed coach Craig MacTavish on Thursday night. (Writer's note: Oilers' fans are probably more concerned with his pinch at the blueline with 10 seconds remaining that led to the winning goal. But guys, it is only pre-season!)
• Rostislav Olesz will be looking for his own shot more this season writes Steve Gorten of the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
• Pat Hickey of the Montreal Gazette has a neat story on the rising Canadian dollar and its effect on various members of the Habs' organization.
• Doctors are still unsure about whether Colin White incurred damage to his eye and the tough defenseman is understandably worried.
• The makeup of the Habs' lineup is beginning to become clear writes Pat Hickey. (Writer's note: More importantly, the practice referred to in the article was played at the Martin Lapointe Arena. Martin Lapointe has an arena??????? I hope it was given to him before he signed with Boston...)
• As Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun reports, the Senators sent down 13 players to their AHL affiliate on Thursday.
• Brian McGrattan is concerned about the new RBK jerseys writes Chris Stevenson of the Ottawa Sun.
• As Greg Logan explains in this morning's New York Newsday, both the Islanders and Andy Sutton are happy to have each other.
• Ken Warren of the Ottawa Citizen reports that Mike Fisher is almost ready for game action.
• Injuries are starting to pile up at Lightning camp.
• The battle for the backup goalie position in San Jose will not be decided solely on play in a couple of pre-season games writes David Pollak in this morning's San Jose Mercury News.

For Illegal Curve, I'm Richard Pollock