Islander/NHL Notables

The News Pictou County: Has an uncredited article on Saturday's second annual Play the Pros event will take place at the John Brother MacDonald Stadium in New Glasgow which was started last year by Jon Sim and Colin White of the Devils. Jon Sim comments, Joey MacDonald will participate.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
What's fun about an article like this is last year's photo has Jon Sim wearing the Islanders 2006-07 jersey before the Reebok edge designed was released, Sim never wore that jersey playing in New York.

I referenced this information a few weeks ago and Bruno Gervais should also be one of the players participating.

I found it very interesting Ross McKeon of Yahoo Sports did an article about teams contracting here in a feature about things he would change around the NHL. Washington Capitals owner Ted Leonsis in his blog fired back with a strong response here as to why it's not feasible with a few choice words for the Yahoo sports senior writer who in turn responded to Mr Leonsis here and of course started by writing about page views.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Whatever happened to the good old player feature stories?

Is it really about page views for so many of these sites and revenue from their advertisers so they throw anything against the wall hoping it sticks and stirs up angry/passionate reaction? I was kind of offended Ross McKeon started his response to the Caps owner with that. It's just another reason I'm conservative with what I post here and I try and draw my own line between professional and amateur but I have included Mr McKeon's team ranking and work because clearly he is a professional and will be part of our blogs coverage regardless of content.

As for the article Mr Leonsis points out the almost countless reasons contraction is not feasible and it's impossible to argue his reasoning. I could sit here and make a case for the contraction of all thirty teams in this league at one time or another including all three New York area teams.

The team that won the Stanley Cup last year used to give away cars to get people to attend games when the New York Islanders owned this league, the Wings had problems selling out playoff games the last few years and play in one of the oldest building with the least revenue streams with it's management claiming it needed to make the finals to break even in past seasons with Wings president Jimmy Devellano's comments here about the situation in Detroit here during the lockout era.

Absolutely no club in this league is immune to being included in contraction discussion for folks who wish to start them and for me anyone who wants to start one of those discussions should include his/her favorite team first.

Congratulations to former Islander Gord Dineen who was named head coach of the Iowa Chops with the Desmiones Register doing a feature by Lisa Colonno
here.

Canadian Press here has an updated on the situation with forward Alexander Radulov with comments from Bill Daly from the NHL and KHL President Alexander Medvedev.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Good for the NHL turning down any compensation for Alexander Radulov, he signed a contract to play here, he should honor it and play here. If he signed his contract first in Russia first he should play there and honor that deal.

What Rudulov pulled on the Predators here is flat out bush league, you sign a contract you honor it, you don't decide to sign another one and leave for more money.

KHL president Alexander Medvedev says there no mechanism in the KHL rules to force Radulov's return to the NHL, and said the matter might have to be resolved in court is all well and good but if he was really interested in doing things properly he would be just as quick to blast Radulov and suspend him from playing in his league until he completes his obligation to Nashville as he is to threaten NHL players that they could be suspended from international competition. I know it's fashionable to pile on Gary Bettman and Bill Daly here but in this case it's not fair.

Calgary Herald/Several outlets: Bruce Dowbiggin has more on the Todd Bertuzzi-Marc Crawford-Steve Moore lawsuit from the incident years ago with Crawford now telling his side of what happened in court documents.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
I would not want this hanging over my new coach as training camp is about to begin if Crawford was in any serious consideration if I were Garth Snow. Islanders coaching job is hard enough without that to work with as a sidebar. I wonder if it was a factor for Dean Lombardi combined with a losing record as this finally made it's way into the court system the last few months and received more publicity?

Hard to believe this is the same Todd Bertuzzi who was roughed up as an Islander rookie over a decade ago.

Islander/Sound Tigers/NHL Monday Notables

Not much going on around the NHL today so far.

Mr Logan had a brief chat on the Islander Newsday blog, nothing really new was introduced beyond some speculation.

Both European signing sites do not list Josef Vasick signing in Russia at this time or even have it as a rumor.

Steve Simmons in one of the Toronto papers called the signing of Doug Weight a weird signing by a weird team as he did the shock jock game.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Nothing weird about a player signing with a club who wanted to come here during the season to play with his friend signing with that same club in the summer. We can question whether his production will be enough but if this what it takes to get more out of Bill Guerin and it works it could work out fine.

Or it could be a major bust.

Only thing weird is so far Doug Weight not releasing a statement through the clubs website after Mark Streit did a press conference from overseas.

Owen Nolan signed a two year contract here with Minnesota confirmed by several media outlets.

Todd Bertuzzi's NHL tour lands him in Calgary to start 2008-09here.

USA Today.com: Kevin Allen looks at some of the remaining free agents which include Mark Recchi, Pavol Demitra, Bryan Smolinski, Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg, Teemu Selanne, Yanic Perreault, Stu Barnes, Marek Malik, Mats Sundin, Steve Montador, Sergei Fedorov among several players still on the market.

Tsn.ca: Announced Flyers gm Paul Holmgren was signed to a three year contract extension.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
Ken Hitchcock got signed to such an extension too by Philadelhia, he was gone a month into year one of the contract.

Flyers website: Report they have come to terms with former Islander Aaron Asham on a multiyear contract.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
It's going to be interesting to see if he took a paycut or even a two-way contract after a disappointing season with New Jersey and a pretty bad public altercation with Brent Sutter at one practice.

Best of luck to Asham with the Flyers when they are not playing the Isles.

Buffalo News: Bucky Gleason reports on how tough it is for the Sabres to keep or sign free agents.

Ottawa Sun: Don Brennan does an article that the Senators needs a few more trades like the one that landed them the Isles second round pick in 2001 or the one that Mike Milbury made with Florida, but did put the current New York Islander club in the mix for the eighth seed.

Ct Post: Michael Fornabaio reports in his Sound Tigers blog Bridgeport/Utah will be adding defenseman Joe Callahan and that another forward will be signed along with several items. Callahan's profile is available here.

NYI Fan Central Comments:
It should be noted all UFA in the Sound Tigers/Utah section have been deleted at this point. If they are resigned at some point I will add them in again but too much clutter. Mr Fornabaio will do a great job keeping us up to date.

The latest Todd Bertuzzi disgrace

Edmonton Journal/countless sources: Report former Islander forward Todd Bertuzzi filed what is called a third-party notice in Ontario Superior Court in Canada against his former coach Marc Crawford, for his attack on Steve Moore. He has not sued Crawford, as some reports have suggested.

Moore, who suffered a broken neck and a concussion, is suing Bertuzzi for $38 million

NYI Fan Central Comments:
It's hard to believe some Islander fans actually though this player was going to stay here and become a franchise star. He had a few very good years, then fell off the map and has been nothing but a headache for every organization he goes to now.

This one bears watching because it could be a landmark event in terms of coaches being accountable for their conduct in a court of law if Crawford is instructed to pay Bertuzzi anything. I'm surprised he did not sue the Canucks gm, the owner the of the team, the facility and Vancouver on top of it.

One thing for sure is fellow team owners and the coaching fraternity do not forget and will be very leery of working with Todd Bertuzzi in the future. It will be interesting to see if Vancouver is willing to stand by their former coach, who now coaches the Kings.

Makes me wonder if Bertuzzi is going to retire and this was the only payday he could get moving forward. If he really felt this way he should have said it when he had his hearing.