NHL: Around the League and What’s Happening
Written by: Larry “The Nucks IceMan” Johnson
Vancouver Canucks: Looks like free agent Willie Mitchell will make his decision today on the team that he will play for next season. It will be a choice of going back to Vancouver, heading down to San Jose, playing with Alex Ovechkin in Washington or with an already strong line-up in Detroit.
Only Washington and San Jose have the cap space that could accommodate Mitchell’s salary demands, which is expected to be around the $2 million per season with a two year term, but will this BC boy lean towards a familiar group of team-mates in the Canucks?
As reported yesterday by Canucks GM Mike Gillis, Alex Burrows will not start the season after shoulder surgery and is looking at a month before returning. The news for Sami Salo is much worse as his Achilles tear will mean four to six months before he returns, if at all this season.
For some athletes this type of injury has meant the end of their careers.
With this news at least the Canucks will get more than $5 million relief (LTIR) from the salary cap and would make sense to add Willie Mitchell as additional depth at defense. If that were to become realty, that would still mean a D-man would have to be moved.
And here I thought Kevin Bieksa would be safe from all those trade rumours!
Chicago Blackhawks: Needing to shed show salary with being over the cap by $4 plus million, the Hawks had no intention of bringing goaltender Christobal Huet and his $5.6 million salary back for this season.
As reported by chicagobreakingsports.com, Huet is close to a deal with Fribourg-Gotteron of the Swiss League.
Looks like that deal may be done as capgeek.com is reporting Chicago’s cap space at $1.5 million.
That’s the first time since the end of the season that Chicago has been under the cap space. What a juggling act that has been!
Pittsburgh Penguins: Arron Asham who played for the Philadelphia Flyers last year signed with the Pens for $700,000. Why I bring this up is because he was a player that I thought with his size and point production would have made a great fit in with the Canucks.
His robust style of 126 PIM and added bonus of 10G, 14A would have done wonders for a ‘Nucks third or fourth line.
Aaron Ward: the 37 year old veteran defenseman and also a free agent this year with 13 NHL seasons, has decided to retire. Ward played for a number of teams, with Detroit and Carolina garnering the most time.
New Jersey Devils: And the Ilya Kovalchuk saga continues. Still nothing to report here, as NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daily has met with a Devil’s group to discuss this situation with no new contract having been submitted.
Toronto Maple Leafs: Looks like the Thomas Kaberle trade rumours just will not go away, at least as far as his father is concerned.
Kaberle’s father, Frantisek was quoted from an interview with Czech hockey magazine Hokej, that he’s surprised he is still a member of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
He went on to say “I cannot image how he will get along with Coach Wilson, who relies primarily on aggression and stress. That’s not Tomas, he’s a technical type of defender,” said the former member of the Czech national team. “I think that during the course of the year he will be traded to another club.
Leafs GM Brian Burke countered that when he was informed with; the coach (Ron Wilson) is going nowhere!
And that’s what’s happening around the league.
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