Uber prospect?
It bears repeating. We’re in the dog days folks. If you’re into your European soccer, or NFL training camps/meaningless preseason shenanigans then I’m sure you’re coping. If you’re not then I hope we’re keeping you sane here at Blueseatblogs. Without further delay, on to the latest Around the League post.
Christian Ehrhoff signs for LA 1.5m 1 year
Christian Ehrhoff has finally found a home this offseason. The veteran German defenseman has signed a relatively paltry one year deal with the Kings for $1.5m. Ehrhoff had a pretty disappointing year with the Pens last season, struggling to stay healthy and putting up almost career worst numbers. However, this deal represents almost no risk for the Kings and makes you wonder why no other contending team jumped on Ehrhoff if he was available at this kind of cap commitment. If Ehrhoff can get back to his 30-40 point form he would represent a major steal for the Kings.
Carolina getting analytical
The cellar dwellers that are the Carolina Hurricanes have become the latest franchise to hire a blogger to help with their increased focus on analytics (maybe Dave has a future in hockey as well?…). Former blogger Eric Tulsky joined the ‘Canes as ‘Hockey Analyst’ last week. Hockey continues to move more and more towards analytics. Maybe it’s time I started to understand a bit more about all these fancy numbers…
Yahoo name Kreider as a fantasy sleeper
More and more fantasy posts are coming out now, looking ahead to the new year (‘tis the season) and Yahoo have suggested Chris Kreider could be a breakout candidate; something we’ve discussed numerous times. It’s a list worth looking at if you’re fantasy inclined.
The Yahoo A-Z series – New York Rangers
Sticking with Yahoo and the website has a pretty cool summer series going on, looking at the history of each franchise in an A to Z format. They get round to the Rangers here. You should all know all this already but nothing wrong with brushing up on your franchise history.
An early glance at free agency next season
For those of you that like looking ahead, the Hockey News took a look at twenty free agents that might make free agency next season. You can check it out here (Hey, Giordano is already off the list…).
The likelihood of most of these players making July without a new deal is remote, but the market has the potential to be vastly superior to this year’s mediocre crop. If either of Kopitar and Stamkos entered free agency, both in-their-prime superstars would represent the best player to ever hit the market in the era of free agency.
European hockey is off and running – Five Rangers prospects in Europe this season
Real hockey has arrived. The KHL kicked off their regular season this week. We’ll have regular posts on how the prospects are doing throughout the season. The Rangers have top prospect Pave Buchnevich and Igor Shesterkin going in the KHL this season. They also have three other prospects in Europe this year in Aleksi Saarela, Robin Kovacs and Daniel Bernhardt in Finland and Sweden respectively. Buchnevich started his season on Wednesday, lining up for Severstal against Finland’s Jokerit.
It will be interesting to see how Buchnevich follows up his oh-so impressive 2014-15 campaign but it will also be interesting to see what kind of offensive production Saarela can put up. Saarela put up 12 points (6+6) in the Finnish SM Liiga as a 17/18 year old last year so obviously will still be a teenager going into his second season playing against men. You can check out the SM Liiga here.
Buchnevich started his season on Wednesday, going scoreless and -1 as Severstal lost 3-2 to Jokerit of Finland despite controlling the play. Shesterkin has yet to play for SKA and is likely to play much more, in the tier below.
Vegas and Quebec continue in expansion process.
In what feels like old news/no news, the Vegas and Quebec groups progressed to the third stage of the NHL’s expansion process at the end of last week. All phases of the process are due to end at the start of September (whatever that means) although expansion will not technically start until the 2017-18 season.
Question time
- What prospect – not NHL or AHL – are you most excited at following this year and why?
- In light of LA’s Ehrhoff signing, in your opinion which teams have the best D depth in the NHL?
- What position, if any, would you like to see the Rangers invite a try-out (or two) to camp?
- (Purely hypothetical!) If the Rangers, next summer, could keep only one of Hayes or Kreider who would you choose and why?
- Project Derick Brassard’s season offensively.
- Will Keith Yandle finish next season with the Rangers?
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