Notable Pool Updates from the Frenzy, Part 2

The Calgary Flames jumped right back into the thick of things with a commitment to goaltender Jonas Hiller on opening day of the frenzy. The Flames signed the 11th best goalie in 2014 to a 2-year deal worth $9 million and now have a legitimate number one in their crease. Hiller had 29 wins and 70 points for the Ducks last season.

The Flames also added a little bit more scoring depth with the addition of Mason Raymond, who signed a 3-year deal on Tuesday, which will see him with a $3.15 million cap hit each year.  Raymond had a bounce back year with Toronto in 2014, scoring 19 goals and 45 points in all 82 games.

The Hurricanes re-signed forward Jiri Tlusty to a new 1-year deal worth $2.95 million, which will mark his last restricted free agent contract as a pro. Next Summer, Tlusty will be able to go unrestricted, if he doesn't get another extension with the Canes. In 2014, Tlusty finished with 16 goals and 30 points in 68 games.  Scoring was somewhat problematic for Carolina last season, so they'll have to find some more help to boost the numbers of their scorers.

The Chicago Blackhawks were able to make the most of an opportunity, as they were looking for another centre to be second fiddle to Jonathan Toews, but they were working on a tight budget... voila! Brad Richards.  Richards just had his contract bought out by the Rangers, so in already getting paid for the next few years, the Blackhawks were able to pitch him a 1-year deal for $2 million, giving them the centre that they so desperately wanted and for as cheap as they needed.  Richards didn't have a bad regular season in the Big Apple, picking up 51 points in 82 games, which ranked him 74th among all forwards in scoring.

The youth movement in Colorado got a veteran boost, as the Avalanche managed to snag one of the big pieces of the free agent frenzy in Jarome Iginla.  Iginla was looking for a longer term contract to help him through to retirement and he got a 3-year deal out of the Avs, which carries an annual cap hit of $5.3 million per season.  Iginla should be able to teach the young leaders on the Avalanche a thing or two about playing some quality hockey, not to mention continuing on a 30-goal pace again next season.

The Dallas Stars started the day on Tuesday with the acquisition of Jason Spezza and then they spent the rest of the day finding some more depth. If you can call Ales Hemsky more depth.  Hemsky signed a 3-year deal with the Stars, worth $12 million and he should be able to make himself right at home with a number of centres, a couple of which he is already familiar with.  Between Edmonton and Ottawa last season, Hemsky had 13 goals and 43 points in 75 games.

The Florida Panthers had some wiggle room to move during the free agent frenzy and they shimmied their way into a number of deals. The top prize and their most pool worthy player was forward Jussi Jokinen, who they signed to a 4-year, $16 million deal.  Jokinen scored 21 goals and 57 points in 81 games with the Pittsburgh Penguins.  Jokinen joins a pretty quick team already, also with some reasonable talent, which could be in line for a bit of a push in the Atlantic Division.

Notable Pool Updates from the Frenzy, Part 1

The Arizona Coyotes were indeed players on opening day of the free agent frenzy, as they jumped in and nabbed themselves a new back-up goalie for Mike Smith in Devan Dubnyk. The Coyotes signed the 28-year old keeper to a 1-year deal worth $800,000. Dubnyk won 11 games and earned 26 points in the pool between Edmonton and Nashville, finishing the season with Montreal's farm team after a deadline day deal.  Dubnyk won't be projected for too many points, but does provide some stability in the back-up position and has more than enough starts, if Smith was to go down for any sort of extended time.

The Buffalo Sabres were definitely one of the busier teams on opening day of the frenzy, as they tried to make it up past the salary cap floor of $50 million.

The team added forwards Matt Moulson, Brian Gionta and Cody McCormick and defenseman Andrej Meszaros through free agent deals, which will cost the team over $14.5 million in cap space in the 2014 season.  The team also re-signed forward Marcus Foligno to a new deal as well.  Out of these deals, the notable pool players would be Moulson and Meszaros, as they each finished in the top 100 forwards and defensemen, but I would imagine that they would likely take a bit of hit going to a new team with a lot of new faces.

The Sabres also acquired defenseman Josh Gorges from the Montreal Canadiens for a 2nd round draft pick in 2016. Gorges, who finished with 14 points in 66 games last season with the Canadiens, may be deep defenseman idea in the hockey pool drafts, but it would have to be fairly deep.

This may be a slow process, but we'll get there. Sure, this one is a small update, but there will be bigger ones, I'm sure.

Quick Hit: Cammalleri Lands in the Swamp

The New Jersey Devils wanted to add some more offense to their roster and they did at arguably a steep price.

Mike Cammalleri signed a 5-year deal worth $25 million.  In 2014 season, Cammalleri scored 26 goals and 45 points in 63 games with the Calgary Flames, which isn't necessarily worth $5 million per season, but he is a marketable player, who needs a centre.

I would say that the Devils still need a centre to help out a guy like Jaromir Jagr or Cammalleri, but that's what the free agent frenzy is about.

Quick Hit: Blues Add Stastny

The St. Louis Blues took a big lump of what cap space they had remaining and dumped it on Paul Stastny's lawn on Tuesday, in the early part of the free agent frenzy. Stastny received a 4-year, $28 million deal, making him into one of the biggest signings of the day.

In Colorado, the 28-year old centre had 25 goals and 60 points in 71 games for the Avalanche, helping the team to a Central Division regular season title.

Now, he heads to a division rival, which was in the race for that regular season title.  This is a big coup for the Blues, who have a great franchise movement on the way and adding more scoring depth down the middle isn't going to hurt.

It's hard to say whether or not his stock is really going up, because the Blues, offensively, were not quite as dangerous as the Avalanche.  What this might do is up the value of Brian Elliott for wins or maybe a couple of their wingers for a few more goals.  

Quick Hit: Gorges Dealt to Buffalo

Another free agent frenzy day deal, as the Montreal Canadiens send defenseman Josh Gorges to the Buffalo Sabres for a 2016 2nd round draft pick.

There will be no table for this deal, but Gorges doesn't exactly bring a hockey pool pedigree to the Sabres, rather, just a good all-around blueliner.  Gorges had a 14-point season in 66 games for the Canadiens and he finished 136th in defenseman scoring.

The Sabres are in rebuild mode and adding some quality defense could go a long way to stabilizing the team for the 2015 season.

Quick Hit: Michalek Stays in Ottawa

Milan Michalek makes a return to the Ottawa Senators as he signs a 3-year deal, worth $12 million, which works out to be a $4 million per year deal.

Michalek's return eases the pain of the loss of Spezza, but the biggest question going forward for him and the Senators will be... who is he going to be playing with?

In the 2014 season, Michalek only had 17 goals and 39 points in all 82 games, which is way down in his scoring numbers.  He only finished 195th overall, well down from his 79th overall, which he had in the 2012 season.

With no immediate centre to play with, I can't see Michalek's numbers getting any better.  The Senators will have to improve down the middle for this signing to make more sense for your hockey pool team.  Michalek is now a depth forward until it gets better in Ottawa.

Quick Hit: Isles Get a Back-Up in Johnson

Have the New York Islanders found their back-up goaltender for Jaroslav Halak?

The Islanders added Chad Johnson early on Tuesday, who had a great year behind Tuukka Rask in Boston.  Johnson finished 33rd among goaltenders in pool scoring with 17 wins and 38 points with the Bruins.

The Islanders are in no way the Bruins, so I would imagine that the stock drops a little bit for overall wins.  Johnson may still see quite a bit of work, but he will also have to compete for the job of back-up with unsigned restricted free agent, Kevin Poulin.

Identifying a good back-up goalie to play behind your starter is not a bad way to go, but it may not have been the Islanders most-pressing need.  I don't know how excited I would be about picking him in a hockey pool draft, but if he has matured enough in Boston, he may still be a viable pick.

Quick Hit: Oilers Add Veterans

The Oilers add two veterans, forward Benoit Pouliot and defenseman Mark Fayne, both signing some longer-term deals on Tuesday morning. Pouliot signed a 5-year deal worth $20 million and Fayne signed a 4-year deal worth $14 million, adding some quality depth to a team that needs to wrangle in their youth.

Pouliot had 36 points in 80 games with the Rangers and Fayne had 11 points in 72 games with the Devils in 2014.  Neither player are real hockey pool players, but adding this depth could help a guy like Ben Scrivens and/or Viktor Fasth, helping the team to figure out a few more wins, but the Oilers should keep this train going.

The Oilers wanted to work on getting some more of a veteran presence and I think Pouliot is a guy that can lead by example from the 3rd or the 4th line.  Fayne, will be a lot like Nick Schultz, trying to find a little bit more stability at the back end.

Quick Hit: The Hoff Lands in Pittsburgh

Christian Ehrhoff heads to the Penguins, signing a 1-year deal for $4 million.

Ehrhoff makes a pretty big splash after being bought out by the Sabres, adding some puck mobility to the Penguins, who already move the puck pretty well.

In 2014, he only scored 6 goals and 33 assists in 79 games, but that has some real upside going to a team with Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.

Huge move for the Pens!  Adding Ehrhoff as a 2nd or 3rd defenseman option on the power play and the team obviously gets a bit better.  Cap space is now limited going forward, but the team should be happy with this acquisition.  Ehrhoff's hockey pool stock is now way up!

Spezza Heads to Dallas

A player thought to be dealt at the NHL Entry Draft didn't quite make it out the door on time, rather waited for an hour before the doors flung open for the Free Agent Frenzy.

		2014 Season					2015
To Dallas	Age	Team	GP	G	P		Cap Hit
Jason Spezza	31	OTT	75	23	66		1 year/$7 million
Ludwig Karlsson	23	AHL	0	0	0		1 year/$925,000
To Ottawa
Alex Chiasson	23	DAL	79	13	35		1 year/$866,667
Alex Guptill	22	AHL	0	0	0		2 years/$815,000
Nicholas Paul	19	OHL	0	0	0		Unsigned draft pick
2015 2nd Round Draft Pick

The 2001 2nd overall pick for the Ottawa Senators, Jason Spezza, has indeed moved down to the Lone Star State, for a package that makes the Senators younger, but not necessarily better.

The centrepiece of the deal is the 31-year old centre, Spezza, who has seen some pretty good years in Ottawa, including a great year recently, finishing 9th in hockey pool scoring in 2012.

In 2014, Spezza had 66 points, which was good enough for 43rd overall in the league in pool scoring.  The Senators were not a great team in the 2014 season, so his numbers were definitely a reflection of his skill and now he is taking it to Dallas, where he'll likely be the number two guy behind Tyler Seguin, who is coming up very quickly to be a number one guy in the NHL.

In Ottawa, the departure of Spezza will mean that Kyle Turris will take over as the number one guy for the Senators, which will add some pressure to his game.

Chiasson was the only NHL-playing piece coming back in this deal for the Ottawa Senators and he had shown a few flashes of a reasonable NHL player, but he is far from what the Senators need to make a quick return to the playoffs.  With this deal, it would appear that the Senators are going to be patient with what they have in the stockade, hoping that kids like Mika Zibanejad matures into a top six NHL forward and then also hope that Mark Stone and/or Curtis Lazar can make a full-time jump into the Senators line-up.

In order to make the rebuild a little easier, the Senators were able to drop a lot of salary in this deal, as the difference is over $6 million.  I now have the Senators going into the free agent frenzy with six roster spots open and $25.3 million on cap space.

The Stars, on the other hand, did spend some money in this deal, but you could argue that it was a wise decision in this addition.  Dallas has nine roster spots open, going into the frenzy, and has $14.8 million in space.  It may not add up to much for each of those spots, but looking at what they have in place already, this will mostly be depth players being added towards October.

Parenteau for Briere

The Colorado Avalanche and Montreal Canadiens are again trade partners, as we see PA Parenteau and a 5th round pick in 2015 head up North for Daniel Briere.

		2014 Season					2015
To Montreal	Age	Team	GP	G	P		Cap Hit
PA Parenteau	31	COL	55	14	33		2 years/$4 million
2015 5th Round Pick
To Colorado
Daniel Briere	36	MTL	69	13	25		1 year/$4 million

Both players were brought on by their now former teams to help the team's offense, giving them veteran boosts, but thanks to injury in 2014, neither player really played a huge part in each team's success.

With both players counting $4 million against the cap, the deal does turn out to be a wash and since the Canadiens are taking on an extra year on Parenteau's deal, it looks like the draft pick is there to compensate for that.

It did sound like both players were potentially on the block during the year last year, but no one really wanted to take a flyer on each of them.  With this deal, it gives both players an opportunity to get refreshed and possibly give a shot to the arm of their careers.

It will definitely be interesting to see if poolies will acknowledge this deal and maybe take a flyer themselves on these guys.  I would imagine that Parenteau would look awfully attractive in Montreal, while depth in Colorado may bump Briere down a little ways.  Briere's playoff pedigree, however, will likely be intriguing to an Avalanche team that fell short in the playoffs after a very good regular season.