Hockey Trade Rumors

This was one of the best games so far this season. I know I should not write about games on HTR, but this deserves to be posted, mostly for “A True Hockey Story” for the Eric Lindros saga. Flyers showed a lot of good signs, they had a lot of chances, but Richter shut them down and for the most part, controlled the whole game. The Rangers did win the physical battles however, but this is only the end of the first chapter of the Lindros saga.

ESPN online is reporting that Washington Capitals veteran defensemen Calle Johansson is out for the rest of the season.  He is having surgery on his right rotator cuff on Monday.  This story was originally reported in Sunday’s Washington Post.< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

“It’s remarkable that he’s been playing for the last two or three weeks with that kind of injury,” general manager George McPhee told the Washington Post. “He’s one of our best all-around players and it’s a kick in the stomach, but we can’t control that part of the game and we’ll give other people opportunities and hopefully we’ll be pleasantly surprised.”

Another report online states that the Flyers rugged defensemen Luke Richardson may miss four to six weeks with a broken foot.  The Philadelphia Daily News also reported that he will be out indefinitely and is hoping the foot is not displaced. 

In replace of < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Richardson the Flyers have activated Francis Lessard from the Philadelphia Phantoms (the AHL affiliate).

As requested, I have looked into the early defensive player performances and came up with this followup to the previous “surprises” article

Here’s another rumor for you guys….This time, coming from the mouth of Jacques Demers (former TB coach) not some sort of video games trade as we can see regularly post here…Anyways.

Here’s the rumor: New Jersey Devils are very interrested in T.B. Vincent LeCavalier and apparently, they already made an offer to Tampa’s Rick Dudley… Seems like there’s no trade yet, but it would include Bobby Holik. Now listen carefully…I’m not sayin’ it would be a 1:1 trade, just that it would INCLUDE Bobby Holik in a Lecavalier deal…Thought it was interresting, it would give Tampa Bay’s the grit they need… Post Comments if you like… 

The New York Rangers are showing big signs that the team does have chemistry. Richter is on fire, Fleury, Lindros, York are becoming a threat every night, Leetch is playing with comfort from Malakhov, Berard is starting to skate well, and just about every player is showing what they got. The best player on the Rangers, who is still not recognized by the league, is Mike York.

Team Payroll lists we’re released this past week and some staggering numbers can be seen on it.  After a look at some notable stories from several teams around the NHL, I want to pass on a nice Gretzky story that I just read.

After watching tonights FlyersHawks game, and I know this has been said a few times before, but the officials this year are brutal. They might as well have the coaches call the penalties from the bench. I’m not going to blame the whole game on officiating, but it was awful tonight. Apparently it is ok for Primeau to have to take on two guys at the same time. Maybe these guys didn’t see a third man in, but they were obviously both going after Primeau. And after this the Hawks still managed to come away with a powerplay. Only 6 minutes of penalties were handed out when at least 4 pairs of gloves were on the ice. After the Flyers killed the powerplay, the refs must have been threatened by Coach Barber, and called a weak make-up call against the Hawks’ Spacek, for a great hit on Williams, I believe. I was just wondering if the officiating is this terrible all the way around the league. It’s kinda tough to watch them all. I think that the NHL needs to take another close look at the current 4 man system.

The New Jersey Devils might soon reach an agreement with 37 year old defenseman, Scott Stevens. Stevens is currently under a contract, and is receiving 4.2$ million dollars. The new contract should largely increase his salary almost double, 7$ million dollars a year. Stevens states that he feels “optomistic” about the contract.

Is GM Lou Lamoriello spending too much for a 37 year old veteran? Not only that, he is just a stay at home defenseman as well. Will the Devils become a high salary team?

A Three way trade will be accomplished before November 13th, 2001. The involving teams are Ottawa, San Jose and Toronto….

This season, after most of the teams played 10 games, there will be 8 reviews on every team in the NHL, and how each one is performing. This is the first review out of 8 in total, every ten games.

There’s trouble and discention in the ranks of the Dallas Stars… Team USA has some new candidates to consider… Some rookies have impressed this season… and more diving into the stats stories of the week.

I recently wrote an article intitled ”Look for changes if the Habs don’t win” in which I mentionned that the administration will not tolerate another season without making it in the playoffs.