Highest Paid Player By Year

The Puck Report made a post a few days ago on the highest paid players in the NHL by year since 1990. It just goes to show you how much the game has been changed by free agency since the lockotu. From 1990-2004, the highest paid players were legitmately some of the elite players in the game. Can anyone argue that Lemieux, Gretzky or Lindros weren’t the best players from 1990-97, or that Jagr was the games’ premier player for a four to five year span? In 2008, the salaries of Daniel Briere, Scott Gomez and Thomas Vanek were all free agent acquisitions (Vanek was forced because of the Oilers offer sheet to Buffalo). None of them were in the top ten in league scoring.

Year: $m —–Player
1990: –2 —-‘—Lemieux (PIT)
1991: –3 —-”—Gretzky (LAK)
1992: –3 —–‘–Gretzky (LAK)
1993: –3.5 —”’-Lindros (PHI)
1994: –3.35 –”-Lindros (PHI)
1995: –3.66 –”-Gretzky (LAK)
1996: –6.54 –”-Gretzky (LAK/STL)
1997: –11.35 -‘–Lemieux (PIT)
1998: –16.45 -”-Sakic (COL)
1999: –14.5 —‘-Fedorov (DET)
2000: ‘17.4 —Jagr (PIT)
2001: ‘10 —-Forsberg (COL), Kariya (ANA)
2002: ‘11 —-‘Jagr (WAS)
2003: ‘11.48 –Jagr (WAS)
2004: ‘11 —–‘Forsberg (COL), Jagr (WAS)
2006: ‘8.36 –Jagr (NYR)
2007: ‘8.36 —Jagr (NYR)
2008: ‘10 —–”Briere (PHI), Gomez (NYR), Vanek (BUF)
2009: ‘10 ——‘Heatley (OTT)
2010: ‘10 —–Lecavalier (TBL)
2011: ”10 —–Lecavalier (TBL), Luongo (VAN)

Ducks 3rd Jerseys

Now those are some nice looking third jerseys.

They have definitely come a long, long way from their expansion year in 1993, to possibly the worst/most embarrassing third jersey in NHL history, to what they have been wearing since removing the “Mighty” from their team name.

Leafs’ Schedule

I have already made note of how the Leafs are doing themselves a big favour with the run they are on right now because of the ease of their schedule. But here is a fun stat about their early season games. Completely irrelevant, but fun to think about:

The Leafs only play ONE team in their first 11 games that would have been in the Playoffs had they been in the Western Conference last season.

I say irrelevant because comparing this year to last is like apples and oranges. The Leafs are a perfect example of that; they have played great thus far. On the flip side, it’s also irrelevant because if you throw Buffalo and their 100 points into the Western Conference all season, they probably don’t finish with 100 points.

Now, based on who I would consider to be a “good” NHL team, I want to breakdown the Leafs 2010-11 schedule by month. By “good”, I mean either Cup contender or just a solid, all around team. Obviously there will be a few more teams in the West.

LW Status!!

Holy crap! Yahoo is actually paying attention this year. After years of being weeks and months behind in updating positional status in the hockey pool (or just not even updating them at all), Yahoo has updated two highly ranked players in the NHL.

Pavel Datsyuk has only been playing wing on and off for Detroit for about two seasons now, so it comes as a huge surprise to see that he now has left wing status. Jeff Carter, on the other hand, has been shifted to the wing on occassion this year because of the emergence of Claude Giroux and the preference of Daniel Briere to stick to centre. He now has right wing eligibility.

2010-11 Stanley Cup Pick

Didn’t do too bad by picking the Flyers to win last year. Although it wasn’t the way I expected them to get there (that’s right, I didn’t predict them to make the Playoffs on the last day, upset NJ and then come back from an 0-3 series deficit from Boston), they still ended up two wins away from Lord Stanley.

Are you ready for my prediction this year…….

Northeast Division Breakout Candidates

Here they are for the dreaded Northeast Division, home of the 3-0 Toronto Maple Leafs:

Central Division Breakout Candidates

Alright, since I’m way behind on all of the predictions I wanted to make, I’m going to get through these last two divisions rather quickly. You just have to trust that three games of the regular season didn’t change my opinion on anything:

Playoffs?

 

Stop the presses! The Leafs are 3-0 and technically are 1st place in the NHL. Last season, their third win came on November 7 in their 15th game.

Last night’s game was a dominant performance, scoring four goals on only 14 shots then playing dump and chase minus the chase the entire third period. The Leafs could easily go 6-0 to start the year, with their next games @NYR, vs NYI and vs NYR. After a tough game with Philly they get the mighty Florida Panthers.

In other news, teams in the Western Conference continue to play difficult teams and are actually forced to travel long distances and over multiple time zones multiple times a week.

In all seriousness, the Leafs are doing themselves well by having success with their weak schedule early on. We all know that they will be in tight to make the Playoffs and will probably end up a bubble team; but getting the “easier” wins now is a lot better than absolutely needing to get them in February and March. Right now, there is absolutely zero pressure on the team and they are playing like it. Their goaltending has been stellar, especially the Monster in the third last night, and their penalty kill actually hasn’t been absymal. It’s nice to see them doing all of the “little things” right for a change.

KHL Update

With (former) NHL exiles Jiri Hudler, Nikolai Zherdev and Nikita Filatov all back in North America, and Jaromir Jagr’s downfall over the past few seasons, there isn’t that much that would catch a casual observers eye in the KHL this year. Oh, except Alexander Radulov, who already has 24 points in his first 13 games of the new season.

No big deal there. Here are some highlights from his 2009/10 campaign where he took home the MVP award for the season.

Worry About Jiri?

Nothing to worry about here. It should be comforting to everyone knowing that Babcock actual said he will be on the third line, but still expects 70 pts from him.