NW/NE Divisions Set To Slide?

1) While it is a bit too soon to make our preseason predictions (Check for them in late September), the trends don't appear to be good if your a fan of the NE and/or the NW divisions. Traditionally the strongest of the NHL's 6 divisions, they appear poised to lose that distinction. Fans north of the border, who's teams' make up a large number of those divisions, might be in for a tough year. There hasn't been a Stanley Cup champ from a Canadian based team since the Habs did the trick back in 1993. It doesn't look good that this will change in 2008-09, and many Canadian based teams might not even qualify for the posts season.

2) Teams that we feel are going to be poised for a down turn this year are:

• Colorado: Going into the season with Budaj and Raycroft as your starting goalies doesn't bode well for a return to the post season.



• Minnesota: The losses of Rolston and Demitra will be hard to replace. While we don't underestimate the coaching abilities of Lemaire, it might be a tough season in The 'Land O Lakes'



• Ottawa: For those like us who were keeping track, the Senators after the first 2 months last season, played below .500 hockey. With the loss of Redden, and Gerber now the #1 goalie, we could see this team miss the playoffs entirely

3) In addition to those, several teams that struggled a bit last season will probably continue to not excel next season:

• Toronto: We believe that even WITH Sundin this team would struggle to make the playoffs, but without him they are all but assured of watching hockey next April.



• Vancouver: Sundin could still be the wild card here, but without him we don't see their team having the fire power to stay in the top 8 even if Luongo plays at the top of his game



• Buffalo: Another big loss of a big time player in Campbell. The younger players like Vanek, etc and Miller in goal will have to carry the load, but we are dubious that have what it takes to get back to the elite 8 in the East

4) Of the remainder we can see Edmonton as seeing an improvement over last year, and perhaps even compete for what we believe will be a relatively weak NW division. Montreal in the NE despite relying heavily on some aging vets and a second year goalie should be right back in the chase for the division title along with the Bruins. Overall though at this juncture we would be surprised to see a team from these 2 divisions representing their respective conferences in the Finals next spring. Certainly we would NOT have said such a thing a few months ago. A slide indeed!

Why Eklund Is An Asshole!

1) Firstly a huge 'You're Welcome to all the folks who sent us Thank you notes, for the just ended faux vacation in Patagonia. Its been a while since we last posted so we figured we'd weigh in on a few topics. We plan to do our annual "Rating The Franchises" some time next week, Look for it. However after reading the latest blog-bullshit from FR's buddy Eklund, (pictured above) we couldn't stand idly by and not comment. (BTW, we got that picture from puckthathit.com) Without permission. ; ) We urge our readers to read that blog entry as well.

2) The asshole who we'd have to bet has fewer and fewer real readers who believe his drivel, came out with his latest "rumor" post today. It had to do with Brian McCabe. As anyone knows who follows hockey (anyone who reads this blog surely fits that bill) knows that McCabe has a No Trade Clause (NTC) and up until now has been reluctant to agree to waive it. First the facts that are well known and not Eklund rumour bullshit

• Brian McCabe has apparently agreed to waive his NTC


• The latest published(not rumor) report stated that the Florida Panthers are one of the teams that Brian has agreed to be traded to.


• One of the 'sticking points' is that Brian will be automatically paid 2 million (not bad for doing nothing!) bonus on September 1st so no deal will be consummated before this date.

3) Eklund used this information then to satisfy his paying customer(suckers) readers he has to add that his 'sources' tell him a much bigger deal is being discussed. Naturally if Florida is in the mix what should we expect but this:" ...the Leafs are attempting to get Bouwmeester into the deal.....". OK, perhaps, but not fucking likely. So WE decided to ask our real faux sources. We have a good budy who has the inside scoop on these kind of things in south Florida. When we told him of Eklunds assertion that Bouwmeester would be part of this he sounded like he almost spit up the drink he was sipping on he laughed so hard. " Not in a million years do the Panthers trade the Leafs Bouwmeester for McCabe!!.. Not even if they threw in Antropov and the CN Tower!"

4) He went on that the Panthers aren't even the only team inquiring. That despite his 5+mil cap hit more than 6 other teams are now lining up for his services. Apparently those GM's haven't been watching Brian play recently? Of course we weren't shocked to find out that Eklund's drivel was just that, made up shit to satisfy his hungry, sap readers. Tomorrow he will likely do a 180 and proclaim that another team has a huge 4 way deal on the table. By the time September 1st rolls around he'll have mentioned 20+ teams as possible McCabe destinations and just after the trade is reported he'll report it as a E5, and do a 'see I told ya so'. BTW, any of you loyal Eklund readers, ask him if he's heard any new Jason Allison rumors. In the past 24 months he's had the now-former NHL-er rumored to all 30 teams. Anyone keeping track of how many 'rumors' he's created on Sundin? LOL

Hold The MSG:NHL At War with The Rangers?

1) Intriguing story that we haven't heard much of since the 2008 NHL Entry draft weekend. Apparently there is very bad blood between the NHL (Gary Bettman) and the NY Ranger's ownership led by the Dolan family. Make no mistake, they are at war! The dispute goes back to the last CBA negotiations. The Dolans were one of the owners who were not exactly enamoured with the prospect of a salary cap. After all, prior to that his team could spend their enormous wealth of any player they pleased. The cap would significantly cramp that style (We believe its been a God-send to them, but at the time Dolan didn't see this)

2) Things didn't improve once the CBA was finally ratified, begrudgingly approved by the Ranger ownership. One of the provisions that the Rangers objected to (and continue to now) is the virtual take over of all online teams' advertising. The league and the Rangers have feuded over control of the team's web site. In September, Madison Square Garden sued the NHL, saying it violated antitrust laws by monopolizing control of team promotions. However, a judge ruled in November that the league was within its right to take control of the web site. As a way of returning the favour to the Rangers(retribution) the NHL in a June court filing asked a judge to agree that MSG breached its contract by challenging NHL rules. The NHL further claimed that it can force MSG out of the league.


3) That last statement is what got our attention at FAUXRUMORS. The NHL is going to kick out its most profitable American based franchise over web site control? Are they kidding? Talk about a cutting off one's nose to spite your face situation. Its also not like Bettman and the NHL can just force the Dolan's to sell the team. Even if they did/could somehow pull that off, what then happens to the team? The Dolans also happen to own the arena where the Rangers play (Madison Square Garden, MSG) We doubt they would simply allow the new owners to use their arena, so then we'd be faced with a situation where the biggest American NHL team has no home to play. Imagine Ranger fans if you were forced to play your home games in Newark, or worse yet, in Nassau??? LOL
Knowing Bettman he'll probably have the team handed over to Boots DelBaggio

We're Back!

1) Oh Geez! What an incredible week. Still recovering from all the travel. We probably should have stayed away a few days to recover just from that. We seemed to be on the go almost every day since last Friday. Where did we end up going? Well, we never heard of it but our final stop was a place in Argentina called Bariloche (The locals pronounced it Bah-ree-law-cheh) Still trying to figure that out. LOL The folks there are very proud and proclaim the area as "Switzerland of the Americas". After spending a week there we can see why!


2) After landing in the country's capital, where we were only in the huge airport, we took a puddle jumper (and we mean that in the literal sense as the landing strip on at our final destination was not exactly state of the art/what we are accustomed to in the states) to Catedral resort where we enjoyed skiing as good as we have ever seen in the Rockies or Alps. Conditions were perfect. Lots of powder, and not too cold. Some wind, but that's par for being at the end of the world. ; )

3) As Italian is the countries unofficial 2nd language most of us in the FR group were able to communicate very well with a majority of the locals. We would most definitely recommend it for anyone who has the means. It was a nice contrast to the heat and humidity that we left when we left from Dulles in Virginia. The thin Andes air did take something out of us, but there were no major injuries among us and we all got back to our initial airports with relative ease. We want to again thank FR2 for footing the bill. This had to be a pretty penny. Its nice to have rich friends. ; ) LOL Anyway, now back to hockey. We were able to sign in a couple of times over the week away. Due to the renewed(expected) harassment of our continuing blog-pest we had to moderate comments while we were away. Thanks for the birthday wishes from all of you who e-mailed/wrote to us. We're excited to start on our 3rd year here at FAUXRUMORS. As always, keep it here for all the latest!

Happy 2nd 'BirthDay' To Us!

1) Though we are away on our annual FAUX vacation, we felt we'd post a BD message to be published while we are away. Its amazing that we have reached this milestone. When we made our first post (inspired by the late summer drivel/rumours of the time) http://newfaux.blogspot.com/2006/08/making-up-shit.html we never in our wildest dreams believed this would become what it has.

2) We especially didn't think we'd still be at this when the dark days when our now vanquished blog enemy hacked and stole the original FAUXRUMORS blog. Though its still used for his sick amusement, its of little consequence to us now. We have long since moved on when we restarted things again in March 2007. In retrospect he did us a favour, as we feel this forced us to improve/upgrade the blog in many ways since then.

3) With over 530+ original FAUX posts and growing to our credit since that first fateful blog entry, and more than 386+ thousand hits (and growing fast) we are proud of what we have grown here the past 2 years. As we were then, (and always will be) we are a totally FREE site/blog. We decline all advertising offers. For one, honestly we don't need the income, but more importantly, we feel that accepting money would be the wrong perception. We don't want to become Eklund. Selling nonsense/made up crap to sad/loser people. We look forward when we return from South America to begin our third year! Thanks to all of you! As always, keep it here for the latest!

Annual Faux Vacation

1) Time for our FAUX vacation! Its that time of year. The time when we at FAUXRUMORS have our annual holiday away from the blogging world. When FR2 treats the entire Faux-crew to a unique vacation. Last year http://newfaux.blogspot.com/2007/08/good-to-be-home.html we went to northern Italy and were treated to an amazing week.
2) This time around FR2 has something unique planned for all of us. As they did last year FR2 did not give us details until the last minute so all that we can relate to you now is that we were told to pack warm clothes and our skis. We just got our plane tix that will bring us to Buenos Aires in Argentina. We're told there is a connecting flight thereafter so all we know is that is NOT our final destination. We will be sure to relay to our readers details when we return. We will try to 'smuggle in' a lap top so we can occasionally check in here, but no guarantees.


3) The time of year was chosen for a reason. Traditionally its the time most devoid of meaningful NHL/hockey news so its unlikely we'll miss much. When we return we will begin in earnest our preparation for the 2008-09 season by first going through our summer report cards team by team. Later on of course we will do our pre season predictions. As always relaying/discussing pertinent NHL news and gossip. As always(even when we're not actually here) keep it here for all the latest!

Isles-Nolan-Redux

1) We're not trying to pile on here, but we did have some fresh observations following the sudden removal of the team's head coach, Ted Nolan. What struck us was the huge contrast of the good feelings fans tell us they had in the summer of 2006 following the ouster of Mike Milbury as team's GM. At the time many folks tell us it was like a cathartic experience. Finally the 'wicked witch' was gone, etc. The team seemed poised to take a fresh direction. A new GM and coach would be hired and possibly they would buy-out salary cap anchor/underachiever Alex Yashin. At first things looked quite bright indeed as Wang jointly hired former Ranger Cup winning GM, Neil Smith to handle the same duties on LI where he got his start in NHL management under Bill Torry. It was a feel good story of home grown talent coming back to his roots, etc. Smith was respected around the league and brought credibility where there was a dearth of that since Milbury took over in 1996.

2) Next the 'feel good' story continued with the hiring of previously blackballed Ted Nolan. He seemed genuinely thrilled to be hired as coach. It looked like he was as excited, if not more than the fans at the prospect of having a real NHL coach behind the bench navigating the team. Additionally, Wang brought back 2 wayward sons in Bryan Trottier to handle player development, and Pat LaFontaine as advisor to Wang in the newly created panel. Both Patty and Trotts had had falling out with past Isles owners so it was nice to see both back on the Island where they started they Hall of Fame Careers.

3) The good feelings however didn't last long, and the current disorganized/bizarre predicament began. A mere month after taking over as GM, and after negotiating several UFA to come to LI (Sillinger/Witt) Neil Smith was abruptly fired by Wang. Apparently Smith didn't fully realize when he took the job that the title of GM was in name only; That all decisions first had to be first cleared through Wang (and the other members of the panel). Smith rightly balked at this, and as others have found out before and since, you don't screw with Wang.

4) The next move is what really amazed the folks throughout the NHL. Almost immediately after Smith was unceremoniously let go, he was replaced with the teams current back up goalie Garth Snow. It was unprecedented to have an active player under contract propelled into such a high level of management, literally overnight. Snow was/is a bright guy with a degree in business, possibly making him a good candidate to be an asst GM, but hardly the top spot in over seeing player-personel moves by an NHL franchise. Pat Lafontaine tried to convince Wang to reconsider his rash decision of dismissing Smith. Seeing how things were really being done there, and as a friend of Smith, Pat Lafontaine imeadiatly gave notice of his resignation. Further giving the organization a black eye. Wang didn't forget/forgive Patty for this transgression as we found out this past season. http://newfaux.blogspot.com/2008/02/islanders-bush-league.html

5) The final nail in the coffin was the way in which Nolan was canned. We won't rehash this as we already wrote about this extensively here.----->nolan-tossed-off-island. We also want to make it perfectly clear that our intention was NOT to pile on Islander fans. Clearly the good and loyal folks who root for their team should be commended for sticking with them the past 15 odd years. It has been a roller coaster of ups and unfortunately for you guys, mostly downs. We can only hope that Snow now has the experience and as importantly, the authority to make the right decisions going forward. The team now is stating it is in a 'youth movement. That's another word for 'rebuilding', or a euphemism for 'we're going to suck' this year. Hopefully for those folks the team will stick with it and retain the good assets, and finally show/have some management stability. As we wrote on the excellent islandersarmy blog; There might be a light at the end of the tunnel, but it may merely be a LIRR express to Jamaica. ; ) As long as Wang seems to be a hands on owner we fear that the Isles will not truly become a contending team and remain the butt of jokes. We want to be on record here and now that we sincerely hope this is NOT the case.