Montréal: Surréal and Unréal

Picture if you will a place where hockey is talked about day in and day out.

A place where newly drafted soon-to-be superstars high-five you for being hockey fans going into a bar.

A place where an NHL head coach could charm the pants off of just about any woman he wants to in the bar while he's just as hammered as you are and you're stuck standing around in awe of the whole scenario unfolding in front of you.

A place where 10 year-olds have no fear, ignore their grandparents and approach a group of hockey-centric strangers just to heckle a Bruins fan.

A place where out amongst the late night drunken revelers, loud and animated discussions about John Tavares erupt out of the blue.

A place where an inebriated 4:30 AM trip to McDonalds turns into a mind-blowing experience when you realize said McDonalds is across the street from what used to be the Montréal Forum.

A place where running into everyone you've ever cited or made fun of in the hockey blog world convenes to share a beer or twelve together.

This is what Montréal was during NHL Draft weekend. Part surreal, part unreal, completely incredible.

I'll say this about Montréal:

It's a city I loved before making this trip. I'd been there a few times before and had some incredible times up there and the city has always left an indelible mark on my memory for about a thousand different reasons.

This time will go down as one of the most incredible experiences for me because not only was this about being somewhat immersed in the middle of the madness that is the NHL Draft, but it also helped that it doubled as an end of the year convention for those of us in the "alternative" hockey media.

Oh sure, most of us may not have press passes and we may be playing the role of angry columnist at times (OK all the time over here), but anywhere you went in downtown Montreal this past weekend had hockey going on with it.

If you were out to grab a beer at a local tavern, you might run into some front office guys from an NHL team.

Need to get some dinner in Old Montreal? You might see folks from the Penguins stroll down the street with the Stanley Cup, much the way some of the other NHL Tweet Up folks did on Saturday night.

Going to Peel Pub to soak in the frat boy type of nightlife? Downstairs you might get high-fived by a celebrating Kyle Palmieri or you could head upstairs and see Puck Daddy's Greg Wyshynski among others.

That's just a sample of how things went down and, even still, there was more going on than all of that. I don't need to break down how the picks went or the backroom nonsense that was going on or any of that, you'll find enough about all of that elsewhere.

What I can say is that I'm glad I'm NOT in Montréal now after the announcement of the Christopher Higgins trade to the Rangers for Scott Gomez that also, seemingly, included the Canadiens top defensive prospect Ryan McDonagh.

The reaction to this deal, for Montréal fans has been, to put it lightly, hysterical. Not the funny kind of hysterical but the manic, crazed and angry kind of hysterical. For a good example of what it's like to be a dyed in the wool fan of Les Habitents, check this thread at Hockey's Future that reads like an Internet car crash turned into rally with pitchforks and torches. As of this writing, the thread based on this deal alone was up to 35 pages.

Now take folks like that and put them all in one city and have them dialed into what goes on with the hometown team 24/7. That's Montréal. Hockey all day, every day.

Heaven... I just don't speak the language in heaven is all. Well, the main language anyhow.

This kind of seemingly moronic deal sets the table quite nicely for the NHLs National Day of Insanity: The start of free agency.

We've already seen one highly-dubious contract handed out to Dave Bolland of the Blackhawks for five years and $3.375 million per year. He's on the young side, but he also notched a mere 47 points last year. The Blackhawks are banking on Bolland improving and making this deal into a bargain in future seasons.

Yeah, good luck on that.

Adding this to the dubious Rangers-Habs trade today you can see why I look forward to this each year, it's just funny that Glen Sather is on the positive end of the spectrum this time around. Perhaps he'll give an asinine contract to Christopher Higgins (a restricted free agent) to make up for it and we can mock him endlessly once again.

Bizarre part about this deal for Montreal is that they had oodles of cap space to work with and instead lock themselves into having Gomez as their top centerman, essentially kiss captain Saku Koivu goodbye and take themselves out of the running for the Sedin twins since Gomez is due over $7 million a year on the cap until forever.

Like I said: Seemingly and most likely a terrible development for the Habs.

For the Rangers, it's an interesting start and one that's rumored to continue into a deal for Senators winger Dany Heatley sooner than later. Should that happen, well, perhaps the Rangers will realize that they dealt the wrong centerman to Montreal as Gomez would work quite well dishing off to Heatley.

Chris Drury? Not so much...

All of this though is just the appetizer for July 1st. I'll be doing a lot of snap judgments through the day tomorrow on Twitter, so follow along with me as idiocy runs wild.

Bienvenue à Montréal

The Gross Misconduct Hockey Road Trip extravaganza gets to close out the 2008-2009 season as well as get you prepared for the 2009-2010 season all at once by visiting one of my most favorite cities in the world:

Montréal, Québec, Canada

Those accents are very important.

Tomorrow morning I'll hit the road, the illustrious I-87, to attend the NHL Entry Draft. No, I won't be giving you a mock draft since that would be amateurish of me to do and would likely end up sounding really freaking stupid because, honestly, what am I going to tell you that you're not going to find more well informed elsewhere? Hell, just hit up the links on the sidebar and you'll find something you'll enjoy - it's out there and other folks are busting their ass a lot more on this than yours truly.

That's just how I roll. I guess.

The one bit of insight I'll give you is this, and these are the things I'll be keeping an eye out for.

Thankfully, one of them focuses in on the first two picks. I'm curious to see if Garth Snow and the Islanders have just been jerking all of us around for weeks and he's going to run to the podium and make it official that the Islanders give a crap about the team's future and select John Tavares first.

Not selecting Tavares would be damn near criminal and that's not a slight on Victor Hedman or Matt Duchene but Tavares was virtually NHL-ready last year. Hell, they tried to bend the rules to allow him to be drafted last year.

Tavares is the real deal and he'll be the guy to resurrect the Islanders back into relevancy, which is good since both Hedman and Duchene are pretty fantastic booby prizes for the Lightning and Avalanche who select after the Isles.

Provided the Lightning don't do something thoroughly insane they should take Hedman and have him starting on the blueline for the Lightning come September. He's big, he's Swedish, he plays defense. That's a pretty good pedigree to have coming to the NHL.

Then again, this is the Tampa Bay Lightning. The team owned by the wackiest pair of terrible owners in the league, a couple of guys in Oren Koules and Len Barrie who were brought into Little Gary's office this week to get their problems figured out. Of course Gary sided with Oren Koules and hey, why not, he deals in real estate that's a really solid industry lately. No problems there at all.

Oh and Koules wants to pare down the payroll and get rid of Vincent Lecavalier. That ought to go over really well for the fans in Tampa who have already had these two jackals ruin what was once the crown jewel of how to be a non-traditional market and thrive.

This is also the team with the general manager Brian Lawton who said in an e-mail to other teams that if you want to talk about the Lightning that you talk to him and him alone.

"Please be advised that in order to avoid any confusion over the next couple of weeks, as GM of the Tampa Bay Lightning Organization I am the only person authorized to speak on behalf of the team with regard to player transactions," the email read.

"No other person is authorized to negotiate player transactions. Any questions, feel free to call."

Oh good.

Of course with the flux in Tampa Bay and not knowing just what they'll do, Lawton has felt it necessary that Tampa will hang on to their pick which would be pretty wise considering a guy like Hedman would help sure up their defense for a good long while.

Then again, if Koules is getting the bigger share of the decisions on what to do, perhaps trading out of the spot will seem more appealing.

Sure it would. Then again, if the Islanders do go against the grain and do something unbelievably foolish like skipping over Tavares in favor Hedman then the power is in Tampa's hands. And if that happens? Hang on to your freakin' pants because Toronto general manager Brian Burke might actually start table dancing like the fine ladies at Club Super Sexe, full-frontal and everything.

Go ahead, go puke. I'll wait.






Feel better? Good.

If Tampa gets themselves into a position where they can use their #2 spot to leverage whatever they want to out of anyone, then perhaps even Burke might feel compelled to give up his BFF defenseman Luke Schenn in order to land John Tavares. Then again, who knows what other teams might want to throw at Tampa in order to get a crack at Tavares.

If, and these are HUGE ifs, the Islanders take Hedman or anyone else not named John Tavares the NHL Draft officially becomes a circus and the time allotted to Tampa at pick #2 becomes the most exciting time of the Draft as the Lightning phones will not stop ringing the whole time and with Lawton having to handle things with Koules and Barrie also calling to get their say in...

Well for chaos purposes alone I pray for this to happen. Then again, for the Islanders to become a relevant franchise again sometime before I'm dead, I hope they take Tavares. The Isles lack a lot but Tavares gives them the guy to build the franchise around and gives Kyle Okposo someone to have fun with out there.

The other things I'll be looking for this weekend come from a sheerly selfish standpoint in being an RPI Engineers hockey watcher and there's as many as four players with RPI connections who may get their names called this Saturday during the 2nd through 7th rounds.

Three of these players haven't suited up for the Engineers yet but two of them will in the 09-10 season in Jerry D'Amigo and Brandon Pirri. D'Amigo is getting a lot of press of late and could find himself getting called late in the second round or early in the third.

Christopher Ralph at HockeySpy has this scouting report on D'Amigo who he lists at #50 on his Top 60 list which includes some pretty high praise:

Scouting Combine Performance: Eug Sorokin observed: “Good looking guy, heard some chatter amongst the GMs and some teams like him a lot.” Sorokin was reminded of Zach Parise with respect to D’Amigo.

If RPI can bring in a guy who is anything like Zach Parise, head coach Seth Appert will do back-flips to celebrate because RPI will improve instantly from his presence.

Brandon Pirri comes into the draft having some questions over his defensive skills, but his offensive talents are unquestionably noticeable. His stats from this season playing for two different junior squads in Streetsville and Georgetown:

44 GP 46 G 48 A 94 PTS

For an RPI team that severely lacked scoring, Pirri will be a God-send for the program and any defensive shortcomings he may have will be picked up by his teammates. After all, when you're showing up as a sniper, worrying about backchecking probably doesn't rank out too high. Pirri also claims to have added 20 pounds of muscle to his frame bringing him up to 180 pounds, he'll need that to deal with some of the bruisers he'll line up against in the NCAA, most notably those at Cornell.

Pirri projects to be potentially anywhere from late third round to early fifth round for the 2009 NHL Draft.

The other players on the potential draft radar are 2010 recruit Jacob Laliberté and current Engineer forward Patrick Cullen. If either or both of them are selected, count on it being in the sixth or seventh round. Laliberté is a small sized forward but worked as a power play maven in the CJHL last year putting up astounding point totals. Cullen was a rookie sensation for the low-scoring Engineers and figures to build strongly on his freshman success getting teammates like D'Amigo and Pirri (among others) to join him in Troy this season.

One other quick note on this weekend. I'll be reaching out from the basement with a host of other tremendous bloggers from across the Internet this weekend at the official NHL Draft Tweet Up.

Yeah, I know, the Twitter name makes it sound sort of lame - deal with it, Twitter has taken over the world.

Nearly 100 folks from across the NHL blogging spectrum are taking part in this in some ways and even some of the big shots (Wyshynski from Puck Daddy, the folks from Pension Plan Puppets, even Eklund) are going to be there. I'd tell folks in Montreal to hide the beer and their daughters but it's too late to hide the beer and, well, who knows who's going to think it's a good idea to hit the "fun" parts of St. Catherine's Street on Saturday.

I kid.

I think.

Either way, this event, something as simple and kind of under the radar like the NHL Entry Draft has evolved into a blogger summit, and even the folks at All Habs have extended a special invitation to everyone's favorite diminutive analyst, Pierre McGuire, to make an appearance and shake hands with some of the folks who enjoy needling him the most.

If he shows up somehow, this turns into an epic gathering of MONSTER proportions.

As if it wasn't going to be already.

Stay tuned to my own page at Twitter for draft observations, pictures, and other assorted nonsense. Hell, there's even a chance you'll get to see me suited up in my own zebra stripes.

A Change of Seasons

I've been thoroughly hungover and left speechless and wondering over the last couple of weeks after the only prediction I'd made to myself came true with Anaheim handling Ottawa in five games to win the Stanley Cup and set the NHL right back to square one. Of course, the NHL thought they'd gotten off that square after the lockout killed an entire season and it seemed like free-wheeling hockey was going to be back in a big way.

Nuh uh - not so much.

Anaheim and Ottawa co-conspired to set the NHL back to 1995 - obstructing and trapping each other to death and not-so-coincidentally enough, the one fun and exciting game of the Finals was the game won by Ottawa. Teams like Anaheim (and New Jersey, Ottawa, Minnesota, Calgary, Dallas, Vancouver...the list will grow more next year without a doubt) have taken full advantage of the referees giving up on listening to grown men whine, complain and dive all over the ice to enhance calls or to get the referees to stop blowing the whistle all together just for the sake of the game to keep moving.

Funny, I don't recall the NHL having issues like this throughout the 1980s - all anyone seemed to complain about then was whether or not it mattered to even have a goalie out there and if anyone played any defense at all.

Fact of the 1980s: Only two Stanley Cup Champions were true defensive stalwarts in the 1980s - the Calgary Flames (1989) and the Montreal Canadiens (1986). The Canadiens, of course, are the inventors and originators of the infamous trap that Jacques Lemaire taught to the New Jersey Devils in the 1990s. Of course, it wasn't the trap that was the problem (since every team traps in some way, it's the way you get turnovers after all) it was the obstruction and the officials refusal and ignorance and the NHL giving it the wink-and-nod approval from on high.

I know I get off on this ramble quite a bit, but I suppose I do it now to beat the drum that this is the road the NHL is headed down once again if they don't do anything - and given what we've seen of Bettman and Company, we'll see them do something about it by the time the CBA runs out and they're deciding on a TV contract between having games shown on National Geographic Network and the Bloomberg Channel.

After all, this is the man who wants to accept Jim Balsillie's bid for the Predators so badly just to get his mitts on his $220 million dollars but doesn't want the PR nightmare that will accompany such a move because the Predators will be out of Nashville on the first Mayflower Moving Truck he can scrounge up. Given that the NHL in the sun belt states while removing it from traditional hockey areas is Bettman's pet project, it would be egg on his face to see a team go from the southern U.S. back to Canada.

Just keep this in mind, with the recent advances the Canadian dollar has made against the U.S. dollar, keeping a team out of Canada should one want to relocate back there and using the currency difference as a reason not to go is no longer viable.

Bad taxes and crappy facilities, however, is still a damn good reason to say, "NO!"

What has disappointed me in this Hockey Apocalypse Redux is the lack of outrage being voiced by writers and those who follow the NHL the closest. Apparently having close games that are for the most part boring as hell to watch is favored over games that are even slightly high scoring or close to being officiated correctly (which NHL officials were good for about one good period in each game played). There were a handful of columns that came out in American media about how Anaheim winning wasn't the end of the world and then listed off a pack of mythical reasons as to why it's a good thing - none of which actually focused in on the quality of play but rather decided to play up the "success in a non-traditional market is a good thing" angle.

LAME!

As the attendance figures from this year showed, only one of the sun belt teams that have won the Stanley Cup recently have maintained the kind of figures the NHL should want: Tampa Bay. Carolina and Anaheim both checked in at less than capacity for the year, which is even more embarassing for Carolina since they've won it and been in the Finals another time just in the last five years. Their success doesn't give the fans a reason to stay away. Of course, these issues in many team's cases hinges upon the ticket prices themselves with many fans getting gouged by their own teams horribly, most notably Toronto. Of course, the Leafs still sell out, so they're just getting spiked for their rabid loyalty. Sheesh.

The antithesis of that is the Chicago Blackhawks who at last report some ten years ago had rabid loyal fans, but owner Bill Wirtz has gone out of his way to make sure that Chicago fans hate the home team as much as possible. He doesn't televise home games because he fears that fans will stay home rather than go to United Center to watch the team that he's assembled with all the care of Ebenezer Scrooge without a scout.

These problems aren't anything new, unfortunately, yet they all go unchecked and as long as Bettman continues to somehow magically make money for the owners, he'll have a job for life meanwhile the game suffers under his every idiotic whim to keep the outsider "fans" pleased and the soccer moms, who only pay attention to hockey when someone gets hit in a dirty way, happy. What can you say, the man know's who his constituents are!

All that said, it's time to think about the future this Friday night with the Amateur Draft - and unlike the last few years where there was stud, knock-it-out-of-the-park talent at the top of the draft or Mike Milbury working the phones to do something incredibly stupid, this draft will likely be more about teams trading players and picks and everything in between. Some of the best deals we've seen recently in the NHL have happened at the draft and we've already seen one rather questionable one go down with Nashville and Philadelphia.

You might remember them for their near-deadline deal of Peter Forsberg - this time the Predators sent a couple of guys they likely weren't going to afford in forward Scott Hartnell and captain defenseman Kimmo Timonen to the Flyers for the first round pick that they'd originally given to Philadelphia in the Forsberg deal. You got that? Essentially the Predators traded Scottie Upshall, Ryan Parent, Kimmo Timonen and Scott Hartnell for Peter Forsberg.

Under normal circumstances you'd say, "Wow, how dumb is Nashville?" Not so fast.

Timonen and Hartnell were both unrestricted free agents, but the Flyers having a heap of cap space and an upper management pining for the good ole days of no salary cap you get the Flyers giving Hartnell, a career third-liner, $4+ million dollars a year for six years and Timmonen gets $6+ million a year for six years as well. I like Kimmo Timonen a lot, but for that much money? Screw that. This now sets the bar for Sheldon Souray's unrestricted services into the stratosphere. Souray has been a monster defenseman for Montreal the last few seasons after escaping the clutches of New Jersey and being allowed to show he has talent and now he's looking to get paid. And you better believe he's going to now - as he'll probably come in somewhere close to what guys like Niedermayer, Pronger and Lidstrom make per season.

Hartnell's salary scale of over $4 million a year also sets a nice high-low bar for guys like Chris Drury and Daneil Briere who are both unrestricted and will likely get paid big time for what they've done in Buffalo. Whether it's by the Sabres remains to be seen as they're up against the cap pretty hard and would likely only be able to keep one of those guys all while hoping no one gets daring and signs Thomas Vanek to an offer sheet (he being a restricted free agent and all).

It's at least good to see some owners showing fiscal responsibility. I wonder if anyone will actually face punishment for going over the cap - like New Jersey last year should've but got around it by making a highly questionable deal with San Jose. My answer is, of course, no - nothing will happen because why would Bettman step in and upset one of his bosses?

Ridiculous.