Around the NHL blogosphere
There isn’t much to report on the Red Wings heading into the NHL draft so I decided to take a tour of what some NHL blogs have been covering.
Japers’ Rink does an interview with “The Hockey Show” hostess Carrie Milbank. She would usually provide her commentary on all things NHL in the background when I’d catch games on Center Ice online. In the interest of creating greater exposure for the NHL and its employees here’s a picture so you can get an idea of exactly what she looks like:
Carrie’s ready for some pond hockey. Don’t tell her it’s
the middle of June and there won’t be ice for another six months.
I’ve seen two interviews with her and both mention that she was a big “Blades of Steel” fan and that’s how the Texan became a hockey fan. That gives her more cred than saying she’s a Stars fan. All kidding aside, it’s a good intereview and there are more pics of Carrie so it’s definitely worth checking out.
Japers’ pointed me to Allan Muir’s mock draft. Aside from Steve Stamkos going to Tampa with the #1 pick I don’t think anyone has a good idea on which players teams will select. Here’s what he had to say about Detroit’s top draft pick:
30. Detroit Red Wings:
Thomas McCollum, goaltender, Guelph Storm (OHL)Our take: There’s a chance the Wings could go for a high upside European like Swedish center Anton Gustafsson or Tier 2 center Zac Dalpe, but a lack of netminding depth in the system makes McCollum a value choice. The top-rated netminder by Central Scouting, he’s earned comparisons to Ed Belfour, thanks to his competitiveness and his dedication to his craft.
I was expecting the worst given that Muir recently wrote that Brian Burke was the league’s top GM, but this is actually a pretty reasonable suggestion. Jimmy Howard has a good shot at being Detroit’s #2 netminder and Daniel Larsson will head over to North America to presumably backstop the Grand Rapids Griffins. But beyond that there really aren’t any other high end goaltending prospects so this seems like a reasonable suggestion.
James Mirtle continues to delve into the sordid details of Boots Del Biaggio becoming a part-owner of the Nashville Predators. It doesn’t appear that the commish was interested in doing the necessary due dilligence on Boots, possibly because it was the only chance of keeping the Preds in Tennessee. The results, in the Emperor’s New Clothes fashion, have been quite embarrassing for the league. So Nashville is going to end up in more or less the same situation Edmonton was in when they had like 125 part owners instead of just selling the team to the Ontario version of Daryl Katz. Yeah, turning your nose up at a stone cold billionaire in Jim Balisillie was a solid move here.
There were a few rules changes approved by the Board of Governors and by and large they are solid. After a team is penalized and is short-handed, the ensuing faceoff will take place in their defensive zone. This is a move to try and boost offense and I think it’s a good rule change. The governors also approved faceoffs taking place in the end zone where a puck went out of play after deflecting off the goal post or crossbar.
A number of commentators have pushed for a change to no-touch icing due to some of the grisly injuries that have occurred in the rush to be the first team to touch the puck on potential icing calls. I am not a fan of no-touch icing but the league decided to intervene to try and limit the potential for a player being injured during these plays. The on-ice officials can now call a penalty if a player is deemed to have engaged in “dangerous or unnecessary contact”. This is a great compromise in my opinion as I really don’t want to see the league go the NCAA route and adopt no-touch icing.
The final rules change has to do with goalie equipment. It’s incredibly vague in it’s pursuit of having goalie equipment be big enough to protect goalies but also be as small as possible in an attempt to try and help increase scoring. Hey, I’ll take it as long as it means we don’t have to deal with nonsense like suggesting the dimensions of the goals need to be increased.
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