Thursday, June 26, 2008

Thursday Grab Bag

We've got a handful of miscellaneous quick hitters today, but feel free to chat about whatever's on your mind in the comments.

First up is a great read over at McKeen's on Nicklas Backstrom, who isn't taking it easy after a fantastic rookie year: "I want to be a better hockey player. I have to work hard this summer. You want to be better every year, so you have to have a good summer." (h/t to SCruzer on the link).

On to YorkRegion.com for a piece on 2008 Caps draftee Stefan Della Rovere, who takes pride in what he does: "They told me I was a good pick for them in the seventh round because I’m a hard-nosed power forward type of pest. It was nice to hear that."

Next, a quick word of thanks to The Hockey News' Sam McCaig for writing an article about where Ray Emery might end up and not including the Caps in his list of possibilities. My eyes bleed every time I see "Emery" and "Washington" in the same sentence.

Finally, I noticed that the Caps are trying to keep tabs on your summer Red Rocking, so send in your pics - I'm sure they'd be happy to receive something like this Phoebe Cates classic, or perhaps something a bit more modern like this (possibly NSFW).

20 comments:

Anonymous said...

I read that...now hopefully we can all breathe a sigh of relief that Ray Emery's not headed this way. Hey, maybe some not-so-lucky team can sign him and Avery!What a combo...(of problem children, that is!)

FAUX RUMORS said...

1) Until a contract is signed with Huet you will appropriately hear Ray's name pop up. If Cris is still unsigned July 1st don't be shocked to hear about him moving back to Canada, but to their nations capital, Ottawa.
2) That would leave a huge hole in DC. Who would then be the best available UFA goalie? Theodore, Raycroft, etc? Like it or not, it would be Emery.

Anonymous said...

You can't say that Ray Emery is the best UFA because you are only considering Ray Emery with his head on straight, which is clearly not the case.

Second thing is, by my calculations the Flyers have 10F (including Carter at 5m), 5D (not including Emminger) and 2 goalies signed for next year at 54.5M. What is the cap supposed to be?

Briere - 6.5
Richards - 5.75
Gagne - 5.25
Carter - 5.0
Hartnell - 4.2
Knuble - 2.8
Lupul - 2.3

Makes you feel a little bit better about our chances of getting people signed.

Anonymous said...

Emory will only go somwhere that it snows cuz he likes skiing.

Anonymous said...

He prefers to ski on the WHITE POWDERY kind of snow.

JP said...

Alright, enough of that.

JP said...

Hey, make sure to check out our buddy Sombrero Guy's profile over at WaPo's Crowd Noise blog, which leads us to ask the logical next question - with SG off the table, which Rink commentor would you most like to see profiled similarly if you had the chance?

DMG said...

Second thing is, by my calculations the Flyers have 10F (including Carter at 5m), 5D (not including Emminger) and 2 goalies signed for next year at 54.5M. What is the cap supposed to be?

The cap is supposed to go to 56.5-57 million for next season.

However, nhlnumbers.com gives 48.3 million as the cap number for the Flyers next for all players under contract (19) and neither that site nor nhlscap.com has Carter under contract.

My guess is that Carter won't get 5 million and that if anything has to happen, they'll buy out Knuble

JP said...

@ DMG: Carter's expected to sign at right around $5m/year any day now.

Red Rover said...

How about a profile of the ex-whaler? How do you go from being a Hartford hockey fan to a Caps fan? No affection for the 'Canes? Is his favorite player Brendan Shannahan? How does he feel about Gordie Howe's swan song? What are horse shoes? Are there any horse socks? Is anyone listening to me?

Anonymous said...

How about a real photo and profile of the Smoot guy? I believe he lives in NYC?

Anonymous said...

I wouldn't mind looking at Marc Denis in the goalie mix if we can't get Huet or Theodore.

Anonymous said...

Huh. Probably not a lot of people would care about this, but a bit of sad news for the Russians:

Viktor Kuzkin dead after diving accident

JP said...

Let that be a lesson to you, Eric Staal, on the perils of diving.

[Note: I'm immature, so I use humor to deal with difficult topics.]

Abhinav said...

That is a crucial joke, JP.

Anyone watching Wimbeldon? Rafa was THIS close to getting ousted today. He really came on strong to win that 3rd set tiebreak.

Anonymous said...

tennis, anyone? zzzzzzzzzz

just bustin on ya

Abhinav said...

Wimbeldon is the second best tournament in all of sports.

All of you basketball fans can suck a fatty.

JP said...

I love tennis.

But putting Wimbledon ahead of the World Cup and March Madness is lunacy.

Anonymous said...

Perhaps we should profile rage next just for that comment...

although I'm still a big fan of the rage-enomics post.

Abhinav said...

Fine, third best behind the SC and WC. It pummels NCAA. Not even close.