Quiet Day... Look Ahead

Well, it's a pretty quiet morning on the hockey front. Game 3 of the Cup Finals (or lack thereof) goes tonight with little to no anticipation from a lot of sides. I think a lot of my Red Wing fan friends are waiting for the clinching game to really get excited now. Whoever thought winning could be so boring when you had the two best teams from either conference showing up? Maybe the pool favourite from the Eastern Conference, Montreal, would have had a better shot at winning... at least they have some veteran talent to rally around.

Personally, looking forward has been much more fun than analyzing these playoffs. Sure, the emergence of Johan Franzen was a pleasant surprise and well, Chris Osgood taking the crease away from Dominik Hasek wasn't quite a surprise, but whatever. Both Franzen and Osgood will be front and centre come the pools next season, I can guarantee that. Nobody likes to see points being left behind. Both of them will likely figure in well come draft day as well. Something tells me that Franzen won't be scoring at his torrid pace for 82 games next season, but someone could be gambling on something close.

For the Penguins, looking ahead, they will have a much more experienced group of kids, who will likely take this experience and manufacture an even more spectacular season for 2009. It could almost be an all-Pittsburgh first round of a pool draft, if one (or more) were to not be so careful. Between Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin and Marc-Andre Fleury... you could have a 1, 2, 3 scenario in your pool draft. It could happen! Just think... what if they pick up Marian Hossa for next season as well?!?

Once the Finals are over, both teams will get their Prospective Looks and you'll get to see how the team will shape up going into the Draft. As a bit of a spoiler, both teams are not looking so bad.

Also coming after the Finals, the Opiated Sherpa's mock entry draft will also be published. The first round of the draft is quite hyped this year and it should be another interesting draft class. Last summer, the Sherpa outpicked TSN, Sportsnet and ESPN in their mock drafts, so it'll all be compared again this time around as well.

Once the NHL calendar has been released, the Opiated Sherpa draft should have a date within a couple weeks of the announcement of the start of the season. There is still a chance that a keeper draft will be implemented this season for those who may be interested. Details are being drawn up on how that will work, so stay tuned for that. The annual draft will likely be a couple weeks before the season starts and an e-mail will be sent out for that. As for the Sheet, it will get another appearance through the regular season, likely with another online selection sheet. It sure worked out well for the playoffs, except for those who don't know how to read the rules, but the rules aren't quite as strict, so there shouldn't be anything wrong with it this time around.