The Crosby Show

Could the folks at TSN be bigger horses' asses? Pardon my frustration but I'm afraid if I hear one more glowing review of Sidney Crosby, I may quite possibly shoot someone.

It's not that I don't believe he's talented. I'm sure he is. But enough is enough already. Yes, he gets to be Super Mario's protege. And that's wonderful. For him. And the Penguins. As a Lightning fan, I couldn't really care less.

So obviously Pittsburgh snapped up Crosby with the first pick. The big question of the draft was who would go next. The Mighty Ducks answered that question with Bobby Ryan. And he was followed by Jack Johnson for Carolina's third overall pick. Two Americans in the in the top three. Impressive.

Benoit Pouliot, Carey Price, Gilbert Brule, and Jack Skille rounded off the top seven for the 2005 draft. Then San Jose traded up to spot No. 8 so they could snatch up a 26th-ranked prospect. Yeah, I'm not finding the logic behind their decision either.

But again, it doesn't affect me or my Bolts. What does are our particular picks. They were Vladimir Mihalik, Radek Smolenak, Chris Lawrence, Marek Bartanus, Blair Jones, Stanislav Lascek, Marek Kvapil, Kevin Beech, and John Wessbecker.

Beech is a goalie, Mihalik and Wessbecker are blue-liners, and the rest are forwards. Wessbecker is the only American and since he was the 225th out of 230 picks, I'm guessing he won't ever really see NHL action in this life. He'll just have a new line for his resume: NHL Draft Choice.

So with the draft being over, we now have training camp to look forward to. But that's still two months away. In the meantime, the Lightning desperately need to sign some of their superstars. Signing Ruslan Fedotenko today and Tim Taylor and Martin Cibak two days ago is a good start.

Now it's big fish time. Marty. Vinny. Khabby. Boyle. Stillman. Let's not drag our feet, Jay. Let's get this done.




Temporary Buddies   Ryan, Crosby and Johnson (it sounds like a law firm but it's not) are thrilled right now to be the top three NHL draftees. But wait until the season starts and they have to face each other on the ice. That should be interesting to say the least.

On The Day Before

I don't have much to write tonight. All I have to say really is that I'm looking forward to noon tomorrow and a live feed on NHL.com from Ottawa.

I'm not so much interested in who the Lightning get in the draft. We have the last pick in the first round, not to mention our building days are pretty much over for a while. We just won a Stanley Cup. What I'm interested in is whether the Pens really will take Crosby. I mean, sure he's good and everyone's just assuming, but you never know.

I'd also be interested to see if Anaheim does deal away the second overall pick. I know for sure the Panthers would be interested after getting so unlucky they get one of the last picks, second only to the Lightning.

They picked up Eric Cairns after his disastrous plays cost the Islanders the opening round series of the 2004 playoffs against Tampa Bay. But I'm pretty sure the Ducks aren't interested. They do have new owners now.

Disney gave them up, basically because they missed the playoffs completely the year after going to the Stanley Cup finals. Also they were hemhorraging cash. That tended to happen to a lot of hockey teams back then. Hopefully the new CBA has repaired that a little.

But back to the draft. If you watch it tomorrow when it starts, the names you should expect to hear early on include, but are not limited to, Jack Johnson, Bobby Ryan, Luc Bourdon, Gilbert Brule, Benoit Pouliot, Carey Price, Tyler Plante, Anze Kopitar, Martin Hanzal, Jakub Vojta, Tuukka Rask, Ondrej Pavelec Ondrej, and quite possibly Sidney Crosby. Possibly.

I'll be here some time after it's over to talk about it.

You know, if you have any interest whatsoever.




Number 87   This is the guy you should expect to see being handed a Pittsburgh Penguins jersey tomorrow afternoon to kick off the 2005 NHL Entry Draft. NHL.com is carrying it live everywhere but Canada. You guys have TSN and what not, eh?

Opening Night And The Days That Follow

The waiting is over. That schedule I was moaning about on Sunday has finally arrived. Well, all 30 schedules, that is.

The league released the 2005-06 calendar which includes 15 games to be played on opening night. October 5 will see all 30 clubs in action, an unprecedented event. The people at ESPN.com are going to be busy that night. Not only that, but I'd be surprised to discover the NHL actually employs 120 referees and linesmen.

Who knew?

Still, it's opening night and you know what that means. The Lightning finally get to unveil and hang their one-year-old Stanley Cup championship banner in the Ice Palace. (Don't even think about correcting me. As long as I'm alive I'm calling it the Ice Palace!) Motivationless tantrums aside, I should point out that when the banner does go up, it will have been 484 days since they actually skated the Cup around the ice.

Then, in an ironic (or fitting, depending on how you look at it) twist of fate, Tampa could possibly be facing hurricanes on multiple fronts. There is of course the ordinary noun version, which is merely a possibility — albeit a good one. Then there's the proper noun — the Hurricanes from North Carolina.

If you found that difficult to follow, I can clarify only by saying that the Lightning's first game of the season will be against the Carolina Hurricanes on October 5. The date being relevant because, if last year was any indication, we may be looking at another very active hurricane season in the next few months.

If you disliked my pun, tough.

So I've been perusing the schedule this afternoon, taking notice of the large gap in the middle of February. The league is giving the players a breather from the 13th through the 27th to allow the better ones to take part in the 2006 Winter Olympics in Turin.

But more importantly, it's the Lightning schedule that has me intrigued. The NHL wasn't kidding when it announced that the new format would heavily favor division rivalries.

Tampa Bay's first three games are against Southeast Division opponents. And get this, 10 of our last 11 games of the year will be within our division. Three against the Panthers, three against the Thrashers, three against the Hurricanes, and as luck would have it, a finale against the Caps.

To be quite honest, I'm looking forward to it. With several of our big names not yet accounted for by way of binding contracts, we're not quite yet the Stanley Cup winning team we were two years ago. That said, I have faith in Jay Feaster. He'll get the job done and with any luck, we'll be back on top of the Southeast Division for the third consecutive time.

And as for those rabble-rousing local TV news outlets saying things like "Khabibulin may sign elsewhere," you'll be getting a piece of my mind later in the week. Nik, Vinny, Marty, and Boyle will all be donning Tampa Bay uniforms on October 5.

Or let me be struck by Lightning.

Matter of fact, I'll take the Lightning either way.




The Next Gretzky: It's more than likely and one might almost say it's a given that Pittsburgh will select Sidney Crosby with the first overall pick in Saturday's draft. But you know what happens when an 18-year-old kid gets too much hype. Yep, everyone's left disappointed. Let's see what happens when he and the Pens play New Jersey on opening night.

Who's Next?: This was the scene in New York last Friday afternoon when NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman made the announcements of the 2005 Entry Draft selection order. My Bolts pick last. But that's the way it usually goes for the champs. The draft will be held this Saturday in Ottawa.

Rest In Peace: In case you never got to see it, I thought I'd make sure there was a record of the original title and design of my hockey blog. I launched in July 21, 2005 as RinkWorks SKL (a play on DreamWorks SKG). The initials stand for St. Louis, Khabibulin and Lecavalier, three players without whom the Lightning would never have won the 2004 Stanley Cup.

I hope you like the new design. It's a Blogger classic.

Awaiting A Schedule

I'm just sitting here waiting. Waiting for a calendar.

Yeah, it's a special calendar. One released by the National Hockey League. Not one, but 30 actually. Thirty calendars.

Waiting.

I want this season's schedule already! I've been missing hockey for over a year now (though it feels like much longer) but the league hasn't released the schedule yet.

You know, I'm just dying to see the placement of the eight matchups against each of Florida, Washington, Carolina, and Atlanta. Dying. If you didn't pick up on the sarcasm there, let me direct you to my personal blog.

The good news is that the new schedule format makes things pretty predictable, which is a nice thing. The new format still allows for the regular 82-game season.

Instead of playing six games games against your four division opponents, that's been bumped up to eight. So that's 32 games within the division. And friends, as part of the most pathetic division in hockey (which, don't forget, produced a Stanley Cup champion) is something I'll choose to be thankful for.

You also play four games each against your ten division opponents. For us, that's everybody who's left in the Eastern Conference. That's 40 more games right there for 72.

All 10 of our remaining games will be played against teams in the Western Conference. But there are 15 teams in the west, so how will that work? The answer is we obviously won't get to play everybody. And since the league is evenly divided into five-team divisions, that makes things easier.

Each season, we'll only get to face two Western divisions. My guess is to cut down on travel expenses. We play one game against each team from a given division at home, and one game against each team from a given division on the road.

Case and point, this season we host the Central Division, comprised of Detroit, Nashville, Columbus, Chicago, and St. Louis. Then at some point we'll head to California to face the Pacific Division teams in Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Jose, Phoenix, and Dallas.

You may or may not have noticed a fact that particularly sucks in all of that. We don't get to see anybody from the Northwest Division, meaning no regular season rematch against the Calgary Flames, whom we crushed to take home the Cup. How horrible is that?

But while I'll miss the 2004 Stanley Cup reprise, I'll accept the four meetings with New Jersey. I just love beating the Devils now. Two playoff series in two years. It's a rush.

So to sum up, Tampa Bay's 82-game 2005-06 season breaks down a little something like this: 8 games each against the Hurricanes, Panthers, Capitals, and Thrashers; 4 games each against the Islanders, Canadiens, Rangers, Sabres, Devils, Flyers, Penguins, Maple Leafs, Senators, Bruins; 1 game each against the Blackhawks, Blue Jackets, Blues, Predators, Red Wings, Kings, Mighty Ducks, Stars, Coyotes, and Sharks; and no games against the Avalanche, Wild, Oilers, Canucks, or Flames.

And just so at least someone's saying it, the Stanley Cup champion is playing 32 games against teams in the worst division in the NHL while playing none against the teams in the toughest division. I'm not complaining.

I'm just saying. I'm waiting for a schedule.




Return To Ice: I know, I know. It's a Boston Bruins ice sculpture. But hey, nobody made a Lightning ice sculpture. And I thought it was pretty cool. No, really. You know, someobody really should make a Lightning ice sculpture. Even if it is a hundred degrees out.