Happy Birthday To Us!!

1 ) WE NEVER thought we would still be here to go into year 7! Yes, this blog is now SEVEN years old! 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. 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 is out there 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.


2) With over 1100+ original FAUX posts and growing to our credit since that first fateful blog entry, and hundreds of  thousand hits (and growing fast) we are proud of what we have grown here the past 7 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 to the beginning of our EIGHTH year! Thanks to all of you!

As always, keep it here for the latest!

Save the Dates!

 Just some brief house keeping for our readers.  Below are the important dates to remember for the upcoming NHL season.

Aug. 2 - 4: Non-compliance buyout period on contracts

 Sept. 11 Start of training camp

 Sept. 13: Exhibition games begin

 Oct. 1: Opening Night of 2013-14 regular season

 Nov. 11: Hockey Hall of Fame Induction Night

 Dec. 24 - 26: Holiday Break

Dec. 26 - Jan. 5: 2014 World Junior Championship in Malmo, Sweden

Feb. 9 - 25: Olympic Break

March 3: NHL Trade Deadline

Apr. 13: Last day of regular season

Apr. 15: NHL Draft Lottery Apr. 16: Stanley Cup Playoffs begin

 May 9 - 25: World Championship in Belarus

June 27 - 28: 2014 NHL Draft in Philadelphia

Over Paid/Rated!!

 

1) What is it about Jay Boumeester that teams just feel obligated to throw money after the very mediocre defensemen?  His over rating started early going as a first round selection, third overall, of the Florida Panthers at the 2002 Entry draft. He did have a decent, but not spectatcular rookie season when he scored 20 points and was named to the NHL All rookie team in 2003.  He played seven seasons in the Panthers peaking in 2005-06 when he scored 46 points. he also has scored 10+ goals 3 times before being traded to the Calgary Flames in 2009, with whom he played four seasons.  His production fell to below 30 points/season there despite getting a hefty five-year, $33 million contract from Calgary.

2) To his credit he does hold the longest active NHL Iron man streak, having appeared in 635 consecutive regular season games as of the end of the 2013 NHL season.   Bouwmeester also played in the 2007 and 2009 NHL All Star games. However he has never really been a true top NHL defensemen, not having ever even been a Norris Trophy Finalist.  Despite this he has consistently been paid as such. Thus far he has made in excess of 35 million dollars!  Fast forward to this weekend when despite his diminishing production the St Louis Blues decided that Bouwmeester deserved a nice extension along the lines of 5 years 5.4 million/per!  To make that deal worse they threw in a "No Trade clause" on top of that already hefty paycheque.  Perhaps at age 29 Jay will finally start to play like a top defensemen in the NHL? 

5 Years No Nutz!

1) Firstly apologies to new FR readers. we originally were not going to commemorate our blog victory over the delusional moron known as Hockeynutz.  http://imhockeynutz.blogspot.com/
 However, being that today is the five year anniversary that that imbecile finally gave up his insane/ perverse fascination with this blog we simply couldn't allow it to go by without mention.


2) For those who have become readers in the past year or so and are unaware of what occurred not long after this blog started almost 7 years ago until July 2008, an individual(s) located in the Calgary Alberta region (determined by IP address) quickly became amazingly obsessed with everything that we wrote here. He'd comment on almost every post we'd make with accusations of plagiarism, etc. He even started to make up several blog names to additionally comment here. The pinnacle of his audacity occurred in February of 2007 when employing the help of a computer hacker (or himself?) he stole our original blog. We hesitate to publish what it became, but to illustrate what kind of a sicko this guy is, we will.  http://fauxrumors.blogspot.com/

3)As you can see even after he stopped his blog he briefly continued the ruse of mirroring this blog on the old site. FR's new approach of comment moderation coupled with alerting everyone of his tactics must have made his job near impossible and he slowly has lost interest. (Perhaps his parents took his computer away? LOL) We still occasionally see him pop up and use the Fauxrumors name on other sites to try to discredit the blog, or use new made up screen names and comment here. Thankfully never to success. We have long since moved on and continue to grow. As we come close to our 6th anniversary of doing this, we want to thank everyone who has assisted us in this endeavour!

As always, keep it here for all the latest!

Shut Up Luongo!

1) With the recent and shocking Corey Schneider trade to New Jersey it appeared to all that the on going goalie soap opera in Vancouver had finally come to an end. Albeit not the conclusion most anticipated. Most analysts figured that the Canucks would either trade him out right or failing that would use one of their 'compliance buy-outs on the oft maligned Whop-Frog goalie.  The 34 year old is under contract until the 2021-2022 season concludes! Yes you read that correctly. Mr Luongo will be the ripe old age of 42 when this onerous deal concludes. Any wonder why the Canucks couldn't find a taker? 


2) Now to his credit Luongo annually puts up decent, if not very good numbers. His cap hit of 5.3 million is in line with a starting NHL goalie. Its the length of the deal that had fellow GM's cringing. If it had 4 or less years remaining, there is NO doubt that he would NOT be a Caunuck today. In essence he was the boobie prize. Neither party wants the current situation, but neither party can do much about it. Which brings me to the very reason why I'm writing this post. Post Schneider trade Luongo tweeted (no he wasn't hacked!) that he was "considering his options". To that we screamed WTF does that mean?? Your options Roberto are to either play another 8 years and collect your approximately 50 million left on your deal or retire. That's it, end of sentence/story. No other "options" exist sir. Believe me, if there were "Options" they would have been exercised LONG ago by Vancouver!  So shut up and stop a few pucks and enjoy the money!

Draft/Trade/Buy-out Preview Issue

1) Just days ago, the Chicago Blackhawks were hoisting the Stanley Cup following a rousing final round with the Boston Bruins. But there's no living in the past in the NHL, especially this season. It's already onto the 2013-14 season with the NHL draft. The lockout forced the league to conduct all seven rounds in one day.  Additionally we will discuss possible trades, and other maneuvers that might take place now that the NHL is in "off season mode".

2) The draft we are being told by countless NHL scouts/execs is one of the best in many years. From talking with some insiders we are told the likely top 5 selections, most likely to have an immediate impact in the NHL in 2013-2014 are as follows.

1- Colorado Avalanche Will likely select Nathan MacKinnon. The Halifax Center who they believe will be another player added to their burgeoning core of youngsters


2-Florida Panthers in a stunner I'm told will NOT select Seth Jones, but in need of offensive star power will grab Finn(Russian?) Center Aleksander Barkov.  We don't like that and perhaps GM Tallon will come to his senses and take the better Jones?  Stay tuned

3- Tampa Bay- Not surprisingly they also will forgo Jones having previously grabbed a defender early in the draft in Vic Hedman Instead Yzerman we're told will grab McKinnon's linemate at Halifax, Jon Drouin.  He could be the player with the biggest initial impact, but again Jones will have the better career.

4- Nashville-   David Poile, barring a team changing their selection (unlikely) will 'step in shit' when the see Seth Jones still available to them at #4. The wily old GM will NOT make the same mistake his younger counterparts made in front of him and will add the son of former NBA star Popeye Jones to their already solid defense corps

5- Carolina- Barring a trade which is still very possible. Canes GM Rutherford has been shopping this pick for weeks now. The Canes would likely pick the safest player left, and that is Swede Elias Lindholm.

3) Now we're hearing lots of trade rumours and I'm sure you will read tonnes of them on that rag of a site known as Eklund, etc. However we are old that few block busters wil take place and instead a majority will be trading up or down for picks and lesser NHLplayers for a pick here and there. that said we are hearing that a BIG deal has already been consummated but is being held back until it can be formally announced to the folks in attendance at the draft in Newark NJ. Specifically that NJ has traded it 1st pick (9th overall) to Vancouver for Corey Schneider!!  Yes, take that to the bank folks the Luongo-Schneider soap opera is about to end with the most astounding result- Luongo STAYS a Canuck!

4) The next rumor to discuss and it dove tails well with the above story; is the 'complience buyout" period has commenced.  Teams can buyout up to 2 contracts without any cap hit.  Many felt that Luongo would be an obvious candidate but with the upcoming trade of Schneider its extremely unlikely that the Canucks would dispose of BOTH of their goalies. especially with a paucity of decent UFA goalies available (more on that later)  With that in mind here are the players we are hearing will be getting an early present of guaranteed money AND UFA status. Some have already been announced.

 Danny Briere- No shocker as the Flyers need cap space
Ilya Bryzgalov- Again no shocker as Ilya has been a HUDGE disappointment in Philly, while the guy they jettisoned, Sergei Bobrovsky won a Vezina!
Vincent Lecavalier- This was a shocker, but makes cap sense. Vinny wins-wins here. In a bad UFA class he suddenly looks like a good option for teams. If all goes as planned the Flyers will use that Brierre/Bryzgalov savings to land Vinny with (another) dumb long term contract.
Mike Komisarek- Although not yet announced, it won't be a shock that the Long Island native will be bought out. He wasn't even on the NHL team this year.
Mikhail Gabovsky- This IS a shocker of sorts. The Leafs have yet to confirm this, but well paced sources tell fauxrumors that the Russian will be given his walking papers shortly.  Oddly he had a very solid playoffs and appeared to be turning the corner on his career.
Rick DiPietro- Another NON-shocker. The goalie for life's career is all but over and he had another 8 years left on his bloated 15 year contract
Johan Hedberg- With the upcoming Schneider trade the devs will need to clear their crease of the 48 year old Swede
Tomas Kaberle- The habs will very shortly announce they are parting ways with the Czech defender to clear up cap space.
Jeff Schultz- The Caps no longer feel the need to retain his services and his play didn't reflect his pay, so bye bye Jeff.

4) Post draft/free agency etc we will be compiling our annual off season report cards for all 30 teams based upon how they drafted/retained/signed free agents,etc and how they stack up now compared to when they last played. Since the free agency period is elongated we will probably not have that post out until mid/late July. Ofcourse as other issues/stories break we will have it here, as always first and Faux!

Black Hawks Champs of the NHL!!

1) Two goals. Seventeen seconds apart. A second Stanley Cup victory in four seasons for the Chicago Black Hawks! An amazing turn of events that had the Hawks a mere 76 seconds from having to go home to play a Game 7. In that short span the Hawks turned defeat into eternal glory!  Stunning the Boston players and their fans and starting their premature celebration.  The team that set an NHL record with a 24-game unbeaten streak to start the lockout-shortened season won three straight games after falling behind 2-1 in the best-of-seven finals, rallying from a deficit in the series and in its finale.

2) The Blackhawks opened the season on a 21-0-3 streak and coasted to the Presidents' Trophy that goes to the team with the best regular-season record. But regular-season excellence has not translated into playoff success: Chicago is the first team with the best record to win the Cup since the 2008 Red Wings.   The Blackhawks went through Minnesota in five games and Detroit in seven, rallying in the Western Conference semifinals from a 3-1 deficit and winning Game 7 in overtime. They got through the defending NHL champion LA Kings  in five games to return to the Cup finals, where Boston was waiting.  The Blackhawks won the first game at home in three overtimes but dropped Game 2 in  another overtime,  and fell behind 2-1 in the series when it returned to Boston. But since then, it's been all Chicago.  It seemed Boston had to play almost perfect hockey to win those 2 games, and there was no way they could continue to hold back the clearly superioir team. You 2013 Stanley Cup champions---- The Chicago Black Hawks!!