2010-2011 Pro Hockey Thread

[zurch1818]

Congrats to Mcdonagh being called up. Even though he hasn't really had that spectacular of a season in the AHL with 8 pts in 38 games, he still was a solid player for the Badgers last year. Now they have Stepan and McDonagh on the same team.

[trwi7]

I'm just going to say it now. Connecticut Whale is the best name in the history of man.

[RyDogg66]

I cant believe how much I have become obsessed with hockey over the past 6 months. It is really a great sport. Having the Wild on FSN Wisconsin is nice as I am starting to get to know some of their players. Also Vs. does a nice job. I dont have a whole lot else to add, just wanted to comment about hockey.

 

One thing I have been thinking about, how great it would be if Milwaukee had an NHL team. I do realize though that it is highly, highly unlikely to ever happen. Still, it would be awesome if it did.

 

Another question - Are there assigned numbers to certain positions sort of like Football? For example, I see a lot of goalies wearing similar numbers, mostly #1 and #30, although I have seen other goalies were #29 and #31. Do forward or defenseman have common numbers as well?

[trwi7]

Milwaukee has a team that's the level right below the NHL and since Nashville doesn't usually sign free agents and develops from within there are a lot of future NHL players on their teams. J

Just looking at Nashville's roster right now here is a list of players who spent time in Milwaukee.

Cal O'Reilly
Jerred Smithson
Nick Spaling
Colin Wilson
Martin Erat
Patric Hornqvist
Chris Mueller
Andreas Thuresson
Cody Franson
Kevin Klein
Alexander Sulzer
Ryan Suter
Shea Weber
Pekka Rinne

So over half of their current roster has played in Milwaukee and that's not even counting guys who played in Milwaukee and went on to play in the NHL for different teams (Mike Santorelli is the example jumping out at me right now since he's the most recent.)

And no, there are no assigned numbers as far as I know.

Also, tying this in to baseball here is a picture of Montreal Canadiens goalie Carey Price wearing a Brewers hat.

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs1171.snc4/154384_473555780344_510505344_5855523_99626_n.jpg

[zurch1818]

Awesome find trwi! I had no idea Carey Price was a Brewers fan.

 

I've got a Preds question/fantasy question. Sergei Kostitsyn is on fire as of late. As of now he is a free agent and Simon Gagne is really just terrible this year. Is he worth the pickup? I really haven't seen him play at so I'm not sure if it is a fluke. He would go great with Shea Weber though who is on my team.

 

Ah...one more question that isn't Preds related. Is James Reimer the real deal? Goalies are a premium in our league. Most teams only have 3 goalies out of the 20 players but they account for roughly a quarter of the total points. I have no need for a goalie right now, but I am thinking about scooping on him then having him catch fire and use him for trade bait.

[trwi7]

I don't think he is a Brewers fan. The guy who took the picture says he wears a bunch of different hats. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

A Canadiens fan who saw Kostitsyn play a lot last year had this to say about him (the same fan who took that picture of Price btw)

Inconsistent. My friend actually calls him and his less useless brother The Inkonstitsyns.

And he's a spoiled little (word deleted) would will start pouting and throwing tantrums if he doesn't get his way or his coach gives him a lecture on something. Good luck with him.

He's in the last year of his contract and playing for a new one so I'd take a shot on him. Like you said, Gagne has been horrible, -21 on a team as good as the Lightning is amazingly bad.

As far as Reimer. He's decent, maybe a mediocre #1 goalie or a really good backup. Who are you other goalies? I don't think you would get much in a trade for him so I wouldn't pick him up for just that reason, but if you think he's an upgrade over your 3rd goalie, I'd go for it.

[zurch1818]

Thanks for the advice. That is quite the scouting report on him. I picked up Gagne when someone got impatient with his neck problem and gave up on him. I had an open IR spot, so why not? It's Simon Gagne! Now it's more like it's Simon Gagne? He played decent his first week back and then has just done nothing. I think Kostitsyn is worth a shot especially since he is in a contract year. It's good to hear that from a Preds fan.

 

That's what I thought about Reimer too. Only 4% of the leagues have him right now, but I definitely see that climbing with his stellar play as of late. His line of .947/1.92 is probably unsustainable, but still should project well. I've got the best netminding in the league with Miller, Quick, and Crawford, so I don't think I could drop any of them. I took a gamble with Crawford early (owned by 9%) when Niittymaki was losing his job and it has worked out great. This is why I thought Reimer might be a good buy low. I've seen some pretty stupid trades go through this year, so I still could capitalize on it and bring in a solid skater.

 

How is your fantasy team doing this year?

[trwi7]

How is your fantasy team doing this year?

 

In a word, terrible though it's not completely my fault. I actually had no intention of joining but they needed one more player at the last minute so I signed up, it's my first time ever playing fantasy sports of any kind so I wasn't really sure what to expect and since I signed up right before the draft I didn't really get a chance to look over all the categories. Well after the draft I realized 40% of the categories involve the goalies and I have weak goaltending. I tried to make a trade for a goalie, but I kept getting awful offers like Backstrom and Samuelsson for Sergei Bobrovsky. I'm like, okay that's my best player and one of my other good forwards and I can't even get a goalie who plays 75% of the time?

 

Problem was everyone knew I needed a goalie and thought they could screw me in trades, so I just decided to give up most of the goalie categories, maybe winning one or two of them and then just try to beat them in the other 11 categories. It hasn't worked out too well, I'm 87-119-15 in 15th place out of 16 teams. Only 7 points out of 13th place though!

[trwi7]

Amazing. The day I'm talking about all the NHL talent that has gone through Milwaukee this comes out.

 

SPRINGFIELD, Mass. … The Milwaukee Admirals franchise has been a pillar of excellence since joining the American Hockey League in 2001, and they show no signs of fading as they again climb towards the top of the West Division.

 

Milwaukee, whose affiliation with the NHL’s Nashville Predators is in its 13th season overall, has qualified for the playoffs in eight of its first nine AHL campaigns – including an active league-record streak of seven consecutive years of at least 40 wins and 90 points. The Admirals, Calder Cup champions in 2004 and runners-up in 2006, have also graduated numerous players to the NHL, including current Predators such as Shea Weber, Ryan Suter, Pekka Rinne, Cal O'Reilly, Patric Hornqvist, Colin Wilson, Cody Franson, Martin Erat, Kevin Klein, Jerred Smithson, Jordin Tootoo and Nick Spaling. Florida’s Mike Santorelli, Minnesota’s Greg Zanon, Atlanta’s Rich Peverley, Vancouver’s Dan Hamhuis and Phoenix’s Scottie Upshall and Vernon Fiddler are also making NHL impacts after developing with the Admirals.

 

This season, head coach Lane Lambert’s club is on a 14-5-1-1 run since Nov. 26, reaching the midpoint of its schedule at 23-11-2-4 (52 points). Milwaukee, which is an impressive 12-2-2-1 on Bradley Center ice this season, has used a four-game winning streak to vault within a point of Peoria for the best mark in the entire Western Conference entering the new week.

 

Defense and goaltending have keyed Milwaukee’s strong first half in 2010-11. In the midst of a breakout campaign, third-year backstop Mark Dekanich boasts a 15-5-3 mark in 24 appearances, is tied for second overall with four shutouts, and ranks third in the AHL in both goals-against average (1.77) and save percentage (.938). Teaming with recent Nashville draftees Jeremy Smith (second round, 2007) and Chet Pickard (first round, 2008) between the pipes, Dekanich has helped the Admirals to the league’s third-best defense (2.38 GA per game).

 

Milwaukee has been led offensively in 2010-11 by Linus Klasen, who shows 16-13-29 through 31 AHL games for the Admirals as a first-year North American pro and is one of six players to skate for both the Admirals and Predators in 2010-11. Chris Mueller (12-8-20), who is already just one goal shy of the 13 he scored last year, paces the Admirals with four game-winning goals and has appeared in his first four NHL games with the Predators. Matt Halischuk, who is coming off a pair of injury-shortened seasons in the New Jersey organization to begin his pro career, has contributed 15 points (9-6-15) in 27 contests to date. Fourth-year forward Andreas Thuresson (4-11-15) parlayed a goal on Thursday vs. Grand Rapids into his first NHL recall of the year the next day, and fellow returnee Mark Santorelli (7-6-13) is on pace to set career highs in goals, assists and points.

 

Rookie forward Blake Geoffrion, a former second-round draft pick by the Predators and last season’s Hobey Baker Award winner as college hockey’s top player, has collected 4-11-15 on the year, including nine points in 16 games since returning from an injury absence. Fellow first-year pro Ryan Thang (5-9-14) enters the week with a point in five of his last six games, and his plus-9 rating leads all Admirals forwards.

 

Second-year pro Jonathon Blum, a first-round pick (23rd overall) by Nashville in 2007, ranks second overall on the team with 22 points (5-17-22) from the Milwaukee blue line, where his fellow defensemen include Aaron Johnson, a veteran of 225 NHL games, and Teemu Laakso, whose 15 points in 35 games already surpass the 13 he notched last season. Roman Josi is tied for fourth among AHL rookie defensemen with eight power-play assists this season, and Brett Palin, who spent the previous five seasons in the Calgary Flames’ system, is just one shy of his career high of 10 assists while tying for the team lead in plus/minus (+9).

 

The Admirals, whose schedule lightens as they play just seven games in 25 days between Jan. 10 and Feb. 3, are in Winnipeg this week to face former head coach Claude Noel and the Manitoba Moose on Thursday and Saturday.

[zurch1818]

I completely understand your situation. I'm commissioner, so I kind of made all the scoring categories. Because half of the people in my leaugue don't follow hockey as close as I do, I was able to recover from my poor drafting in the first couple rounds. I got Ryan Miller in the first round, no problem (I had the 11th pick out of the 12 teams). Second round, there were so many people that I wanted to take that I panicked. I was looking at names such as Kopitar, Thornton, Toews, E. Staal and I couldn't decide. The clock ran out and it autodrafted Jeff Carter for me. He's not bad, but I really didn't want to take him.

 

I started out the year 2-2, but I was able to see potential in FA early and picked them up. Now I'm 10-3. A small finetune of the scoring is necessary for next year, but I definitely like the head-to-head format much better than the rotisserie. With points assigned to everything, you can get by with bad goaltending if you have solid skaters.

 

Funny story here about our draft. We got my brother into the league who doesn't even follow hockey. He had the 10th pick and was drafting based upon how American they sounded. I'm drafting upstairs in my room and he is downstairs doing the same. He got really excited with his first pick and yells up to me while really emphasizing the e "I got Semin." I said corrected the pronunciation and said he was Russian. His third pick was Hossa, but he likes to say Hasa instead.

 

That's a good article on the Admirals. I had no idea that many players played for them. I was shocked to see Scottie Upshall on there. Over the past couple years of playing NHL on my xbox, the Coyotes have grown to be my favorite team in the NHL.

[burniebrewer]

The hockey guys will appreciate this article:

 

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/multimedia/photo_gallery/1101/nhl-goalie-masks-by-team-2010-11/content.1.html

 

It shows all of the goalie masks for the 2010-11 season. There are some awesome masks...and then there is #2, Jonas Hiller.

[tchimmay]

And with that, Kari Lehtonen just became my favorite hockey player of all time (picture 19/61).

Jason LaBarbera's mask also holds special place in my hart (46/61).

[burniebrewer]

I like the helmet Ilya Bryzgalov (#45) who has (I'm assuming) pictures drawn by his child on both sides of his helmet. I think that's a nice touch, and it's definitely different from the others.

[trwi7]

I like Rinne's (doesn't show Peks written on it, boooo) and Lindback's. Though I'm biased. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[burniebrewer]

One thing I have been thinking about, how great it would be if Milwaukee had an NHL team. I do realize though that it is highly, highly unlikely to ever happen. Still, it would be awesome if it did.

The Pettit's built the Bradley Center with the intention of drawing an NHL team to Milwaukee.

 

Excerpts from a Milwaukee Magazine article in 2001:

 

"Jane Bradley Pettit had spent $90 million on the Bradley Center, giving

Milwaukee a state-of-the-art sports facility named after her adopted

father...Now Pettit was contemplating spending $50 million in 1993 to buy a professional hockey team... Given the way the NHL provided players for new teams, it would be five

years before the city could hope to have a winning team. Pettit worried

that Milwaukeeans wouldn’t back such a team...In the end, she withdrew her NHL application, leaving league officials

fit to be tied but moved enough by her explanation that future teams got

better draft picks."

[zurch1818]

Mods:

 

Can we get a merger of the two pro hockey threads? I know these threads cater to a very small portion of BF, but it is annoying having information about the same topic in two different threads. Thanks

[RyDogg66]

Yeah I never know which one to post in.

[trwi7]

For Badger hockey fans the Admirals are going to have the UW Marching Band at the game on February 4th and the first 5,000 fans get a Blake Geoffrion bobblehead.

[trwi7]

These are the uniforms the Admirals will be wearing Friday night.

 

http://www.milwaukeeadmirals.com/dms/pink/geoffrion/geoffrion.jpg

http://oi52.tinypic.com/2ebhoj9.jpg

 

[berniebrewer4life]

I noticed this hasn't been posted. It looks like Quebec City is making a push for a new team to move up(rumors are Atlanta), the city has given the project for a new stadium the go ahead. Here's a link if you aren't familar.

 

http://www.montrealgazett...arena/4175166/story.html

 

 

Will they be able to bring back the old Nordiques name?

[trwi7]

I'm not sure how good another team in Quebec will work. I don't know much about the attendance of the Nordiques, but the Canadiens have so much history in Quebec and Quebec City only has a metro area of 3/4 of a million. I'm not sure if there's going to be enough of a fan base to support them.

[tristarscoop]

Former Badger Jack Skille was traded from Chicago to Florida today

[trwi7]

Former Admiral Hugh Jessiman was also in that trade. http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[zurch1818]

Current Badger Jake Gardiner was also traded to the Leafs today too.

[RyDogg66]

Ok, as a new (and currently obsessed) hockey fan, I have a question. So like I said earlier, my 4 year old is totally into hockey, he plays at the local YMCA twice a week, and I am super proud of him. My wife is game for anything, even though she isnt a huge sports fan, she knows how important team sports are to development of kids, so she is on board as well...that being said...

 

Last night I was up watching Hockey on Versus. Bruins and Canadians, when my wife came into the room to talk about the plan for the kids and the family for the rest of the week. Of course, almost on cue, one of the most ridiculous looking fights I have seen in my short hockey fandom breaks out...and my wife wants an explanation. She is appalled by what she is watching and can find no reason for why it is happening...and it keeps happening...different fights every few minute, at one point it looks like the entire teams are fighting. People are bloody. She wants me to explain why it is happening and why it is justified and why it is "allowed". And...I have no answers. She then proceeds to say something along the lines of "I dont want our kids playing Hockey if this is the accepted culture of the sport" or something like this, to which I can only respond that they dont allow it in college and that our kids arent going to be professional hockey players.

 

Still, she want amused. So what is the deal with fighting in hockey? I have to admit, it does look ridiculous.