OK, I guess we should talk about some things, because it's a couple of weeks after the Finals, which is when hockey gets really nervous that it's not happening anymore and starts to make things happen, even though the season won't start for another 3 months.
1. The NHL Awards are tonight. Watch them if you have absolutely nothing else to do. I do, so I won't be. Things I care about: a) Dave Tippett for the Jack Adams; b) not-Sidney-Crosby for the Hart and the Lester Pearson c) apparently the renamed the Lester Pearson this season! It's now called the Ted Lindsay Award, after this guy, who never actually won it.
For those of you who missed that class back in Hockey School, The Jack Adams Award is for the coach of the year, the Hart Trophy is for the league MVP, and the newly christened Ted Lindsay is for the MVP as voted on by the NHLPA. To clarify, the PHWA (Professional Hockey Writers' Association) votes on most of these awards - that's the body that decides who gets them. The Pearson -- sorry, the Ted Lindsay -- is voted on by the NHL Players' Association - it's the MVP, according to the actual players, not the governing council. They often go to the same person. Here is the full list of awards and nominees. If you're interested.
2. This season's class of Hall of Fame inductees: Dino Ciccarelli, Red Wings Senior VP Jimmy Devellano, previous Flames owner Doc Seaman, and the first two women ever inducted: Angela James, captain of Team Canada through four world championships in the 70s and 80s; and Cammi Granato (Tony's younger sister) captain of Team USA that won the inaugural gold medal for women's Olympic hockey, in 1998 Nagano (also the 2002 team that took silver in Salt Lake City). So, that's cool! Women in the Hall!
3. The schedule was released. Find it here.
4. The salary cap number was released, as well. Since we're in less of a recession than we were in a year ago, it rose a reasonable 4.6%, to $59.4 million. So, that's the figure we'll be working with. You'll hear that number a lot on this blog in the coming months, as we use math to try to construct a not-entirely-embarrassing hockey team.
5. Finally, the draft is coming. This Friday and Saturday. (Again, watch it if you have absolutely nothing else to do. Like nothing else to do.) We have the tenth pick. It is likely that nothing interesting will happen here. But who knows? Maybe something will. The draft goes 7 rounds, and the teams pick in the same order each round (so we'll pick 10th, then again 40th, and so on). We won't pick in two rounds this year. We traded our third-round pick to the Kings for Brian Boyle (I'm cool with this), and our sixth-round to the Islanders in a move we made last month, which I didn't tell you about because I didn't care. We acquired some young defenseman named Jyri Niemi. Yes, we traded with the Islanders. Ooh.
Niemi is 19 years old, 6'3", 206 lbs. Wanna guess what his scouting reports say? "Offensive-minded blueliner" who "needs some work," whose "bazooka of a shot" is "rarely on target." Good guesses. Expect to see more people like this show up in our system this weekend.
The good news is he's probably better than whoever we otherwise would have picked in the sixth round, and he's almost definitely better than whoever the Islanders are going to pick. So let's call it a small victory and move on.
6. Oh by the way, the Blackhawks won the Cup, and there was much rejoicing.
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