Because it's never too early to start talking about next year!

The awards for this past season were handed out last night. The winners are:

Hart - Crosby
Vezina - Brodeur
Calder - Malkin
Norris - Lidstrom
Adams - Vigneault
Masterson - Kessel
Selke - Brind'Amour
Lady Byng - Datsyuk
Pearson - Crosby

In addition to the statistical awards:

Art Ross - Crosby
Rocket Richard - Lecavalier
Jennings - Backstrom + Fernandez

And Scott Niedermayer won the Conn Smythe.

Some of the news already:

Mike Keenan is now the coach of the Calgary Flames. Jim Playfair remains as assistant coach.
Boston has fired Dave Lewis as head coach + Marc Habscheid as assistant coach after just one season. Both will stay with the team, though.
Jim Balsille has made an offer to purchase the Nashville Predators and possibly move them to Hamilton. It still has to be approved by the board of governors, but tickets for the Hamilton Predators have gone on sale already.
Ex-Oilers assistant GM Scott Howson is the new GM of Columbus.
Various players have re-signed, including Sundin + Nittymaki.
Hasek is apparently playing again next year.

Paulsson deserved the Selke IMO. I think if the votes came in after how he destroyed the top line in the Ottawa series, he would've won. He'll probably get it next year though as long as his skill doesn't go down. Otherwise I'm fine with the choices.

I think Luongo deserved the Vezina. Brodeur had a better defense in front of him, and he'd already won it twice. But oh well.

So apparently John Muckler was fired as GM of Ottawa, but nothing is final yet. That's kind of a surprise.

Oh, and Montreal traded Samsonov to Chicago. Not surprising at all.

Neidermayer is apparantley considering retirement

Pleassseeee do it... I don't want Anaheim to be this good next year. My money says he doesn't though.

Muckler was fired as Ottawa's GM and replaced with Murray, who was formerly their head coach. He's just gonna be the GM, so they're gonna hire a new coach for next season.

I'm pretty shocked by this. You get to the finals, so you fire your GM? Makes no sense to me.

Eight days in France without any American television (Actually any English speaking television) threw me off so I have to catch up.

So wait. Lewis gets fired but remains with the team? In what fashion? The whipping boy?

The report is now that Claude Julien is going to become the coach. I hope so. What he did with the Devils last year before being fired with three games left was impressive. Now he just needs the talent to back him up, because the way this Bruins team is assembled right now is pretty pathetic.

The Bruins are holding a press conference today to introduce their new head coach. It's pretty much a certainty at this point that the job will go to Claude Julien, but who knows? Pat Burns was on Boston sports radio today so maybe something is going on there.

On a sidenote that is an absolute surprise to me, the Bruins are unveiling new jerseys this morning along with a slight modification to the logo. I haven't seen a photo of the jersey, but here is the logo.

1995-2007



2007



And a new patch



I also read that they will be unveiling a new alternate jersey as well. They're not the only team though. Washington, Tampa and San Jose are changing there's as well. Ottawa and Colombus are going to their alternate uniforms.

I love the change. It's minor but it looks cool. I'm also digging the new patch. Hopefully it looks good on the new jersey.

Here's what the new jerseys look like.

Road Whites



Home Blacks



And they're badasss........from the front. I still haven't seen the back of them yet. My only slight problem is with the home jersey. The "B" should be gold instead of black. That saying, I can overlook it. They're updated, and yet they're a callback to the "Big Bad Bruins" of the '60s and '70s.

Draft is tonight and teams have already started the trades

In the last few days the Predators have unloaded Hartnell, Timonen, and Vokoun. Kind of strange considering they were the 3rd best team in the league last year, but whatever. Maybe it's a last ditch effort from management to go after an fan-attracting superstar.

Leafs got Toskola from the Sharks. Pretty good move, Raycroft is still a work in process and they could use a back-up. They gave up their first round pick for him, though I still support it.

Apparantley Chicago's getting a lot of fan support for tonight. ESPN is reporting they were expecting a couple hundred people for the draft party and ended up with thousands. I honestly think they can be a good hockey city again if they for once stopped sucking.

Nashville must know they're moving, so they're getting rid of their good players to screw the Hamilton franchise. Figures.

I don't know what Toronto's thinking. They don't need another goalie. Such a terribly managed team. They'll miss the playoffs again.

TSN just reported that the Hamilton deal is pretty much dead. Something about the current owner requesting to the NHL board that Bailsille has no hands on the franchise, because of a contract selling issue and the fact that he personally desires Nashville not to move to another city/country. ughhhh.

Doesn't matter, I didn't think the NHL would let the team move to Hamilton anyway.

So Cheraponav, a Russian with some possible transfer issues, was ranked as a top 5 guy and some like Pierre McGuire actually had him probably the best in the whole draft, and he still hasn't been picked up to #17 because teams are stupid and don't like the transfer deal bit. Oilers and Wild, my two teams, passed on him... fuck. Flames up soon.

He just got taken by the Rangers....

Think I'll turn out about now...

Pittsburgh getting that Esposito guy is . #1 ranked one year ago. God damn. Every nhl team is screwed in about 2 years.

Penguins are a dynasty-in-training. I'm glad, as they're one of the few U.S. teams that I like.

First round is almost over, that's all they're doing tonight, I think.

The nominees for the Hockey Hall of Fame for the upcoming year:

Mark Messier
Ron Francis
Scott Stevens
Al MacInnis
Adam Oates
Igor Larionov
Claude Lemieux

and only four of them can get in.

That's a helluva list. Mess is a lock, Francis is pretty sure, Lemieux won't get in. After that, though...

So it's Messier, Francis, MacInnis and Stevens going in. Stellar list.

Briere turned down Buffalo's five year $25 million offer (no raise) so he's probably going elsewhere. Drury's gonna test free agency as well.

And the Predators are not gonna be sold to Balsillie, but possibly to an American who wants to move it to Kansas City. I doubt that will help, is there really a market for hockey in KC?

HELLO BOSTON!

That's if Bruins management doesn't sit on their ass like usual. Never mind..........

Don't speak too soon...

http://tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=212343&hubname=

According to the Pioneer Press, the Minnesota Wild have traded Manny Fernandez to the Bruins for forward Petr Kalus and a future fourth-round draft pick.

I'm not sure why Minnesota made this deal, one of their premiere goalies for a prospect and a draft pick? They don't need Fernandez when they've got Backstrom and Harding, but they could've gotten more for him.

I haven't seen any sites report that, but if that's true that's a great deal for the Bruins. The Wild must be trying to dump money, because that's an...interesting, deal for them. Fernandez/Thomas/Toivonen would be interesting. Maybe they could get something good by dealing one of those two.

Now they have to pursue Chris Drury. Since he played for Boston University, he's the one player I've been dying to see the Bruins pick up.

Edit (10:42): Hooray! Just caught the report on Yahoo. Fernandez is a welcomed addition.

The Edmonton Oilers have dealt defencemen Jason Smith and forward Joffrey Lupul to the Philadelpia Flyers for defenceman Joni Pitkanen, forward Geoff Sanderson and a third-round draft pick in 2009.

What a joke. Our captain? Really? For fuckin' Geoff Sanderson. Bullshit.

HOLY COW.

Briere to Flyers.

Scott Gomez and Drury BOTH go to Rangers.

Matheiu Schneider to the Ducks.