Overview of the summer in the NHL

This is a small summary of my observations about the nhl free agent hunt that started july first 08. i didnt cover all the signings and didnt update it to add the other major contract signing like Chris Chelios or Joe Sakic, but its still an interesting read.

on july first the free agents hunt started in the nhl.
after a couple of big trades during the draft that surprised many. (olli jokinen in phoenix, alex tanguay in montreal etc etc) the best had yet to come.
many of these trades are worth mentionning and i wanted to create a thread just for that even if not many people beside kip will careill start with the trades concerning montreal
Alex tanguay: Alex tanguay is the perfect guy we needed, we needed a star winger that can score a minimum of 30 goals, a really talented guy, not just some good or decent player an dwe finally found it in Alex tanguay who once said he didnt wanna play in montreal (that mightve changed since we finished first in the conference last season). He's also a francophone which is something that always pleases the fans Hes gonna continue to add to the team renown speed as well as be a player that can control the puck well in the offensive zone, something that you can never have too much. Its gonna relief alot of pressure off of kovalev's back so that he can get more room to perform, or the opposite kovalev could drawn all the defensive attention while tanguay gets to play against suckier defensemen and has enough room to demonstrate his talent

Acquiring the rights to sign mats sundin. its unfortunate that sundin isnt certain if he wants to continue his career, but bob gainey improves his popularity by trying hard to get another established star in the team, a Big 6"5 center is always useful in a team and sundin has been an example of consistency throughout his career.

Signing George Laraque. omg its george laraque, one of the best and most feared fighter in the league, at 6"3 and 260 pound (aprox) and the talent to score goals when he gets used that way in a team (unlikely here in montreal) Laraque is one of the best plumber a team ccan have. its gonna be good to defend our young talented players and mostly our promising goaltender Carey Price. Carey has been pushed around alot last year by opposing teams and while Komisarek can push and kick everybody's ass, hes too talented to take stupid penalties cause we need our defensemen to kill the penalties. so having a guy that we just dont care about to go intimidate the enemy team is good. then we could use Laraque every once in a while to go stand in front of the enemy goaltender to block the view. Laraque is also a francohpone that is known for being really active in the community which is something montreal fans will really love about him.

Signing marc denis, Marc denis was once the blue jackets starting goalie, he would play 70+ games per season and perform good, he was the Blue jackets martin brodeur. but this changed once denis left the jackets to play for tampa where he had a disastrous trip. hes been sucking alot since he was in tampa not performing well (we could blame coach john tortorella for that because he tends to be really hard on his players and doesnt shy down to blame goalies)Denis has the talent to be a starting goaltender he just needs to find his focus again and montreal his giving him that chance. He brings experience to our team as well as be a good competitor for Carey price who will need to perform in order to remain the starter. Also renowned Montreal Goalie coach Roland Melanson will surely help Denis improve as a goaltender. Finally, marc denis is a another francophone something to make the fan rejoyce.

This is what concerns montreal, so far the next season looks really promising as most teams from our division hasnt improved much while we did, lets just hope the chemestry follows and everybody keeps up with the hard work. But we can ahve high expectation as young players mature, and coach guy carbonneau gains experience

Other trades:
Rangers sign markus naslund: Wow another star player for the rangers, last year they signed the 2 really wanted center Scott gomez and Chris drury and now they are adding a really talented 40+ goal scorer to a team that had pretty good offensive talent with Jaromir Jagr and Brendan Shanahan
Rob blake with the sharks: Possibly one of the top defensemen in the league along wiht Scott niedermayer and chris pronger, rob blake is getting old but is still a really pro 6"5 defenseman with one heck of a slap shot. This spring the sharks fixed they offensive defenseman problem by trading with the sabres to get Brian campbell. but thye lost it this week to the free agents, so they signed rob blake to bring a ton of experience to the really young sharks defensive squad.

We trade Grabovski to the leafs. lol this winter grabovski was burning through the AHL by scoring like 15 points in 3 games or something retarded, we called him up to the big team, he played the first game, then we scratched him for the 2nd game to let another bigger play (because we needed the physical aspect for that game) and he got pissed and didnt take the plane with the team to protest cause hes a baby like that. needless to say he had played his last match with the team and now he will play with the rival team, lets hope he gets his chance there

Kristian huselius goes to the Blue jackets: Huselius is like the most underrated player in the league, he can score 90 points in a season easely and for once he gets the recognition he deserve with a pretty big salary.

Sean avery to the Dallas stars: That guy is a fag and should be removed from the league, the fact that hes now in the western conference is making me happy cause we dont see/hear from him as much

Doug Weight with the islanders. The islanders could really use better centers, last season was really deceiving for them (Best scorer in the team had 49 points and was center Mike comrie), Comrie is good, but hes not your best center, he probably didnt have enough working room to perform and Weight might be able to help that, hes one of the greater playmakers this league have seen and he can bring alot of experience to the young and crappy islanders and more importantly leadership to assist captain Bill guerin who became the team captain right after signing with the islanders and learned it on the TV as his little daughter was like "daddy youre on tv". he probably was like "lol wtf.." and had a pretty bad season in terms of goal production, if Doug weight can feed him nicely perhaps we can see the islanders in the playoffs

Tampa bay get Olaf kolzig. Tampa always had a problem with having a good goaltender and ever since they won the cup with nikolai khabibulin they have had really bad goaltenders. and now they get Kolzig, who is one of the best goalie in the league but is getting older and older unfortunately. the 6"3 german south african goalie can still play good and is known to perform better when he gets more shot (he won so many games wit hthe capitals when they would be outshot like 50 to 25)

Mark streit with the islanders for 4,5 million. Streit gave great services to montreal playing as both a defensemen and a forward, his decent slap shot made our powerplay really good this season. But the small swiss guy has no talent, and we used to pay him 500k a year and it was fine. but now that he scored an impressive 62 points last year being fed by our star defensemen Andrei markov, his value went up alot and he managed to snag a huge contract from the islanders. hes not worth half of it but hes still a good addition to the islanders cause they needed a guy that cn play on the powerplay

The blackhawks got Brian campbell. Brian campbell is a very good mobile defensemen and the hawks needed one REALLY badly to assist young duncan keith who is fast, but doenst have the experience recquired to defend well. having campbell there is gonna help the team offense alotThe hawks also got Cristobal Huet, our ex goaltender, who is pretty good but never played more than like 45 games in a season which makes his consistency questionnable, hes good tho and if the blackhawks keep khabibulin then the russian might have some pressure to keep his starting spot as the French goaltender performs well

Michael Ryder goes to the bruins, Ryder scored 30 goal in 2 seasons with montreal but always kinda sucked and all of his goals were kinda lucky, this year he didnt perform well at all and was scratched most of the season cause of it, he has some talent and improved some over the year, but he doenst have the heart and the perseverance to put enough efforts while playing. After his really disastrous season he was able to get actualyl more money than he used to get in MTL by signing with boston. he went from 3,2 mil to 4 mil (thats really odd to pay 4 mil for a guy that didnt play half the season and scored 14 goals but yea whatever good for him)

Rangers sign wade redden, Wade redden is one of the better offensive defensemen in the league and what really hurt hte rangers scoring this year was teh fact that they didnt have a good defensemen to launch the attacks or do great passes (Roszival had that role and hes kinda bad) with Redden, it will make all the forwards look better

Oilers trade Joni Pitkanen for Erik Cole. That is good because the oilers could really use a really good starting winger and they could give away their big defensemen since they have Sheldon Souray who can be that big defensemen with the crazy slapshot. Pitkanen is also the piece of puzzle that the hurricanes needed. The canes always had pretty good offense but their defense was always bad and since they traded the big Mike commodore this spring, they needed another big defensemen. Plus, pitkanen can play on the powerplay

Brian Rolston and bobby holik go back to New jersey, These 2 guys used to be key pieces to the new jersey successes and now they are back, which is good cause nj is kinda weak in the center positio ncurrently, the only problem is that these 2 guys are kinda old now and they paid alot of money for em (5 mil per season for rolston and 2,5 a year for holik). Rolston can score alot of goals and the money spent coudl be justified, but holik is too slow and all he can do is win faceoffs and have a really mean look on his face.

Patrick lalime quits the hawks to go to the Sabres, Lalime used to be the starting goalie for the senators and was REALLY good, but ever since he left ottawa, hes had alot of troubles, i dont expect any change with the sabres, but we might have him cause us some troubles during the regular season as quebec goaltender tend to perfor mbetter vs the habs (most of the type we were shut out last season was against quebec goaltenders that werent starters for their respective teams)

Jose theodore sign with the Capitals for like 5 million a year. thats retarded, he had horrible times ever since he got his big contract with montreal and was just a burden for the Avalanche, but he ended the year nicely last year and played well toward the end perhaps it raised his value enough, either way the caps paid too much and it might not be the greatest move from their part

Marek zidlicky to minneseota. i dont know how important zidlicky was in nashville, but it soudned like he was an important piece of that defensive squad and he joins a team that has a good defensive aspect something that coach Jacque Lemaire enforces. Is zidlicky good enough defensively for Lemaire's standards? we will see, hes still a really good addition to the team if look at it in offensive terms

Radim Vrbata signs with tampa bay. wow another pretty good deal for tampa, vrbata is very underrated and can perform pretty well, it will replace the whole left by Ian Hlavac who was traded to nashville last year.

Curtis Joseph returns to toronto. thats good for him, hes like 43 years old now and he gets the chance to play with the team where he spent most of his career with