After last week’s ruling that awarded Nikolai Zherdev $3.9 million through arbitration, the New York Rangers have elected to allow the forward to become an unrestricted free agent.

“With the additions we’ve been able to make this summer, we feel we’ve been able to add scoring and offense from the wing position,” Rangers general manager Glen Sather said. “Following the arbitration process and subsequent award given, we feel it is in our best interest to walk away and continue to explore all available options to improve our roster.”

In other words, the Rangers disagree with the arbitration decision and think Zherdev to be not worth the money. I’m inclined to agree, as he’s still a relatively unproven forward with one strong season under his belt and nothing but disappointment ever sense. Zherdev had just four goals and four assists in the last 16 regular-season games and went pointless in seven playoff games.

Zherdev has scored 99 goals and 140 assists in 365 NHL games over five seasons. Despite having considerable top-end skill, he’s only shown flashes of brilliance since being drafted by the Blue Jackets in 2003.

In terms of the more immediate future, Zherdev might have an opportunity on another NHL team or he might be able to find employment in the KHL in Russia.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

In true heart-pounding fashion, the Pittsburgh Penguins rose to the challenge and defeated the favourite Detroit Red Wings to win the Stanley Cup. That they did so without the services of Sidney Crosby for more than half the game was remarkable, too, but for the most part this win was about character and heart.

Winning their third Cup in franchise history in Detroit’s building couldn’t have been an easy task for these young Pens and it almost didn’t happen. Goalie Marc-Andre Fleury made a critical save in the dying seconds of the game to keep his team’s 2-1 lead and Maxime Talbot provided both Pittsburgh goals.

In the end, it wound up being about depth and role players for the Penguins. They were able to get pucks deep and play hard along the boards against the veteran Wings, giving their team and their young players the extra boost over the edge necessary to get the better of the prepared, skilled Detroit team.

Evgeni Malkin earned the Conn Smythe Trophy after scoring 36 points in the post-season. He is the first Russian-born player to win the award.

Crosby missed about half of the game after being clipped by Wings centre Johan Franzen along the boards in the second period. He returned for only one shift of the final period and had to sit on the bench while his team pulled off the victory. “I don’t recommend anyone trying watch the Stanley Cup final, Game 7 from the bench. It’s a tough situation,” Crosby said after raising the Cup as the youngest player to do so.

The Penguins also become the first road team since the ‘71 Habs to begin a Stanley Cup final down two games and yet still win it all in the seventh and deciding game away from home.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

A big money save from Marc-Andre Fleury couldn’t have come at a better time as the Pittsburgh Penguins force Game 7 in the Stanley Cup Finals.

Fleury stoned Dan Cleary on a breakaway with just over a minute and a half remaining, sliding across after Cleary seemed poised to play hero for the Detroit Red Wings. Finishing with 26 saves with the world seemingly on his shoulders, the win has to feel absolutely amazing for the young Pittsburgh goalie.

Along with Fleury’s great save, it was the play of Jordan Staal and linemates Tyler Kennedy and Matt Cooke that really kept the Penguins in the game. While the Penguins’ star players, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin, were largely invisible, it was the play of the checking line that really brought things to a head.

Staal did everything asked of him, winning faceoffs and forcing chances while playing a desperate defensive game. He scored the game’s first goal, too, collecting his own rebound and popping the puck past Chris Osgood. Cooke’s physical play was outstanding, sending Detroit’s skilled forwards into overdrive and rattling a few cages. Kennedy was a big time player, too, scoring a goal and assisting on Staal’s goal.

Detroit frequently looked dangerous, however, and the Penguins were not in total control of the matchup. Bill Guerin looked wobbly and uncertain, taking an untimely penalty for a careless high-stick and generally looking lost with feeble attempts on goal from the outside when passing lanes were open.

Detroit was buzzing towards the end of the game despite being out-chanced. A key moment came near the conclusion of the game with a mad scramble in the crease, but Fleury was able to cover the puck before any damage could be done.

The series heads back to Detroit for the deciding game on Friday at 7:30 pm EST.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

In typical Vancouver fashion, it didn’t take long for the clock to run out on the Canucks’ disappointing 7-5 loss and playoff elimination for the blogs and rags to start pointing that calloused finger of blame. Naturally in a Blame The Goalie First culture such as this, that finger of blame squarely pointed towards Roberto Luongo.

In this culture of trend hockey, it’s never possible that the Canucks were defeated by a faster, better hockey team. Nope, it’s the goalie’s fault. And it’s certainly not possible that the Canucks’ loss came as the result of an inability to hold the lead, keep the puck deep in the opponent’s zone, and play hard, physical hockey. Nope, it’s the goalie’s fault.

Patrick Kane, young and faster than most people even thought possible, was the big draw during Monday night’s contest. He scored a hat trick. Combined with young Hawks captain Jonathan Toews, the two future Hall-of-Famers stuck it to the desolate-looking Canucks with three goals in just over three minutes late in the game.

The Canucks looked on the ropes early and did little to hold on despite a few offensive flashes of brilliance. Daniel Sedin, for instance, enjoyed some of his best post-season hockey as he shot the puck with force and energy. His two goals, beautiful as they were, weren’t enough.

The Canucks defence looked in dire shape all night long. Alex Edler was the key culprit, blocking Luongo out from making a save early on and getting in his goalie’s way on another opportunity only to have the puck go in off of his skate. Some might call that bad luck, but I’m more willing to call it bad positioning. Other defenders missed key checking assignments only to have the puck wind up in the back of the net, while one goal found the puck skip past two Canucks defencemen only to end up on Kane’s stick and behind Luongo.

Sure, it was far from Roberto’s best game. There were a few instances where he should have made the save and he could have kept the Canucks in it. But for the most part this loss was a group effort. Bandwagon fans will doubtlessly hang Luongo out to dry. That’s sort of what we do in Vancouver, after all, and we’ll do it again and possibly chase any spirit right out of one of the best goaltenders in the entire world.

The Vancouver Province piled on early, unleashing a tepid article that characterized Luongo’s massive “ego” and salary. Twitter “tweets” called for Luongo to be traded or dumped off somewhere. Such is life in a Blame The Goalie First culture.

For this season, a disappointing one at the end but an ultimately satisfying one overall, the Canucks learned valuable lessons. The Sundin experiment was a bust and that should be examined more closely by the vultures looking to hook this loss on Luongo. And the defensive effort, poorly executed throughout the series, needs another look too. The Canucks still lack a top-tier defensive player and have had to get by on less for almost as long as I’ve been a fan. The scoring situation has improved and the Sedins are proving they belong as top line forwards.

All in all, it was a pretty damn good season for the Canucks. Better teams than Vancouver saw early exits in the playoffs, to be sure, and REAL Canucks fans have a whole lot to be proud of.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

Buffalo’s Drew Stafford celebrated a hat trick in a game against the Edmonton Oilers, scoring the first one just ten seconds into a matchup that the Oilers will be struggling to forget.

You see, Stafford’s hat trick might have been marked as a significant accomplishment in its own right. But it came on a night when the visiting Sabres absolutely annihilated the Oilers in a 10-2 beating that currently stands as the single worst loss on home ice in Edmonton Oilers history.

“It was a debacle of monumental proportions. There were plenty of areas of our game plan that could be criticized,” said Oilers head coach Craig MacTavish, leaving nothing to the imagination in his post-game comments. “The effort tonight, we were just chasing our tails all night. We’re not as masochistic as it may seem watching that game. We have to execute our game plan a whole lot better than we did,” he added.

And indeed, after watching the contest it might seen that the Oilers were feeling just a touch masochistic after the 10-2 loss. The performance, disappointing to say the least, marked the end of a three-game winning streak for the club and will certainly deflate some egos.

Perhaps tellingly, the 8 goal differential actually beat the previous record set in a 9-2 loss at home. That 9-2 loss was to Chicago…earlier this very season.

“We didn’t think that this could happen to us again,” said Steve Staios to reporters after the game. “Especially the way that we were playing of late. Hopefully the experience we have from trying to shake it off last time is the way to do it because we started playing better and got ourselves into a playoff position. You can’t sugarcoat how tough a night it was but we have to put this behind us quickly and move on.”

Even Buffalo coach Lindy Ruff knew what the story was. “It was one of those nights where we caught them flat,” he said. “I’ve been behind the bench on a team where you have a night like that and it’s tough. The harder they tried it seemed like the worse it was getting.”

Ain’t that the truth. The Oilers will need to turn things around quickly and forget this game ever happened. Are there lessons to learn from it? Sure. But a loss like this happens because a team just isn’t bringing it, plain and simple. There’s nothing particularly “off” in Edmonton and there’s no reason for the coaches and managers to start thinking about tinkering. Two losses of such magnitude in one season will certainly look bad in the record books, but the team can’t focus on those games.

Instead, one set of statistics stands out as more important right now: 24-20-3. The Oilers aren’t looking too bad currently overall, sitting in a 4-way tie in the Western Conference with 51 points (Vancouver, Columbus, and Minnesota also share the spot). Edmonton needs to pull it together, overcome the tough lost, and get back to holding that playoff spot. The game against Minnesota on Friday has special importance, as the Oilers will be able to prove they belong in the post-season with a win over their rivals.

Posted by Jordan Richardson.

Sidney Crosby is already racking up the milestones. The NHL’s wunderkind racked up his 100th career goal and notched his 200th career assist on Saturday night in a game against the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Crosby was playing on a line with Evgeni Malkin and was able to score a goal and to add three assists, pushing himself over the 300 point mark (302 points as of Saturday night) in just 219 career games. With the performance, Crosby doubled his season output up until that point. Prior to Saturday’s contest, he only had four assists. And no goals.

“I don’t expect four-point nights, but I definitely wanted to score,” Crosby said after the game. “I felt like I was doing some good things, but the puck just wasn’t going in.”

Malkin could be well on his way to similar numbers, having assisted on all four Penguins goals to give him 201 points in 166 NHL games.

With Crosby already knocking down milestones that many NHL players don’t reach, it’s scary to consider where he could wind up in another ten to fifteen years in the league. His career is certainly one to watch and he should provide plenty of moments and milestones in the years to come. Many modern records may be in some serious danger with him on the ice.

Winning their first NHL title since 2002, the Detroit Red Wings are the Stanley Cup Champions!

It took until game six, which was coincidentally the prediction I (Jordan) iced here. Don’t worry, though, I won’t gloat……much.

The Wings took their time doing it and struggled right up until the final bell, but they finally pushed aside the young Pittsburgh Penguins to win the silver Holy Chalice. With a final score of 3-2 and with the Penguins dangerously close to tying things up in the final seconds of the game, it was a nailbiter right to the end of the matchup.

Once again, the key player for the Red Wings was centre Henrik Zetterberg. His play at both ends of the ice was crucial for them and he was awarded the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most-valuable player of the playoffs for his efforts. Zetterberg nailed down the Cup for his team and the MVP trophy for himself at 7:36 of the third period with a goal that put the Wings ahead by two goals.

The Red Wings win caps a great season for the club, but it also puts other teams in the league on notice in regards to the Pittsburgh Penguins. They now boast more experience than before and dominated each round of the playoffs up until the Stanley Cup Finals, showing grit and determination beyond their years. The future in Pittsburgh is indeed very bright and Pens fans have no reason to be disappointed in their club’s performance. They made things interesting for Detroit and took away the pleasure of the home ice win.

As for the Wings, the stories are deep. Zetterberg, of course, pulled in the Conn Smythe and was likely the best player on the team throughout the post-season and the regular season. Chris Osgood was solid but not stellar in goal and Detroit’s defence was as tough as ever. They played as a unit and didn’t give up much, even to the flashy Pens. The Penguins worked hard for every inch they took and the Wings never took a shift off in the series.

So there it is. The 2007-2008 NHL has wrapped. For the next couple of weeks throughout the off-season, we’ll be keeping things hopping here at HockeyDraft.Ca with all sorts of discussion about the season that was and the season that will be. I’ll also take a remarkable stab at OFFENDING Gary Bettman and will generate some controversy when I discuss rule changes I’d like to see. I’ll also be doing a sort of Year in Review feature on the NHL’s best teams. Any news on trades, signings, and other stuff will also be featured here. It’ll be a busy summer, so take your laptop with you to the pool and log on often!

Until next time, congratulations to the Detroit Red Wings!

On July 30, 2005 the Pittsburgh Penguins drafted Sidney Crosby. Since then, the Stanley Cup has been all the franchise has had in mind.

Yesterday, when the Penguins defeated the Philadelphia Flyers 6-0 and won the right to challenge for the Cup in the Stanley Cup Finals, the Penguins celebrated modestly but realized that their road to their ultimate goal was far from over.

“We still have a long way to go,” said Penguins winger Ryan Malone. “So there’s nothing to celebrate, that’s for sure.”

When Eastern Conference T-shirts and hats filled the dressing room ready to be worn by the Penguins, the players ignored them. “We’re not going to wear these shirts or these hats,” said forward Pascal Dupuis. “We want the big prize.”

The Penguins are geared towards one goal and one goal only: the big prize. Coming up short of the Stanley Cup would be a failure for this young team and that attitude has ensured plenty of success thus far in the playoffs. The Penguins have been dominant. There’s no other word for it, really.

After polishing off their rivals in five games, the Penguins made sure to keep things concise after the game. Sidney Crosby made sure not to touch the Prince of Wales trophy, too.

“I’ve watched a lot of Stanley Cup playoff games,” said Crosby. “You don’t see too many guys touch it. A couple of the guys who have been through it before, they all gave me a heads up, for sure. And it’s a good feeling to go up there. But we all realized that’s not the one we want to be holding.”

So now the young Penguins team will wait out the Western Conference series, which appears to have new life in it after the Stars finally picked up a win in Detroit and will head back to Dallas renewed and ready. Game 6 in the Western Conference goes Monday night.

It was a rough night for the Dallas Stars and their captain, Brenden Morrow.

With not just one but two goals called back, Morrow still overcame the adversity and managed to score. The first called-back goal was the worst offender of the bunch, sparking a fury of discourse from the TSN panel as none of the panelists understood the call.

“Distinct kicking motion” was apparently found on the replays of the goal, although I was hard-pressed to spot one and it seemed most of the world was too. In the late stages of the second period with Dallas up 1-0, Morrow drove to the net and had a centering pass deflect in off his back skate as he battled for position while crashing the crease. There is simply no way he could have seen the puck coming. Oh well. A couple of minutes later, Morrow snapped one home from the faceoff circle near Nabokov. Poetic justice AND 2-0 Dallas.

After that, Morrow had another goal taken back when he batted the puck in with his glove. Sure, that’s an obvious non-goal. What isn’t obvious, however, is the massive crosscheck from the back he received from Craig Rivet on the play!

Nevertheless, the Stars were still up 2-0. That was before Joe Thornton fired a pass across the crease to Milan Michalek and found the back of the net, though. 2-1. And that was before Roenick’s brilliant pass up the middle to Brian Campbell resulted in Campbell blasting one past Turco. Uh oh. Now that first called-back goal has some significance.

With OT, it didn’t take long for the bitter taste of being ripped off to take hold. 65 seconds in, Joe Pavelski snapped one past Marty Turco and it was over. The Sharks had done it and had staved off elimination yet again. Sure, they had some help.

There’s no question in my mind that in order to see a distinct kicking motion during Brenden Morrow’s goal, I’d have to be on some mind-altering drugs or I’d have to completely have a different definition of the term. A quick glance on the message boards about this topic shows little sympathy, perhaps in a way of being deliberately contrarian to popular opinion and, oh I don’t know, COMMON SENSE. Self-made pundits are calling back to other goals and how nobody was “crying about them” or some other nonsense. It’s always the self-made pundits that consider themselves contributing to a discussion when they reference other non-calls during a discussion about a particular call and say “well, they didn’t allow that goal” and act as though precedent is being set.

Let me assert a point here: this is not about what happened to the San Jose Sharks when they have a goal taken back that should have counted. This is not what happened to Jim Snaggins in 1954 in Game 7 of his series against the Riptide Raptors. This is a simple discussion about a “distinct kicking motion” and how Brenden Morrow didn’t bloody make one.

To that end, we need to think about the definition of what a “distinct kicking motion” means. As members of the TSN panel said last night during the game, the NHL rulebook’s definition leaves a lot of room for error. Should the rule simply go for all the rarity of an ACTUAL kicking motion? Perhaps you should be rewarded for having the coordination to kick that puck in the goal? I don’t know, but I do know that “distinct kicking motion” has become such a subjective term that message board morons across the country are ascribing Brenden Morrow with some amazing physical gifts that no other hockey player in the history of the world has.

But oh well. Most of the readers here will have seen the clip by now. If anybody can show me a “distinct kicking motion” on that play, I’ll buy them a box of Tim Horton’s donuts from their hometown. Don’t tell me about other goals where other things were disallowed and don’t compare it to other occasions. Don’t even start with me about “goaltender interference” either. I’m talking specifically about the call that was made last night and a “distinct kicking motion.” Period. Prove it. Anybody?

Being down 3-1 in a playoff series is tough stuff for any team in the NHL. On the ice, it may appear that the Montreal Canadiens have played hard against the Philadelphia Flyers but have little to show for it. While the Flyers haven’t exactly been pushovers, they’ve managed to keep things together starting with their goaltender.

The Habs continue to struggle against Martin Biron, dropping yet another game last night against the Flyers. With a final score of 4-2, the Canadiens will need to do some rethinking and perhaps some retooling.

Of course, the series doesn’t start and end with the brick wall that is Biron. The Canadiens have made some interesting choices. Perhaps one of them was starting Jaroslav Halak last night instead of Carey Price. Sure, Price had a pretty poor showing in net the previous game. But perhaps the switch-up was a little premature. Halak looked unstable and didn’t have the calm attitude that Price had in his playoff games thus far.

And sure, the Habs have been outshooting the Flyers by a fair margin…to say that least. The Canadiens have outshot the Flyers 108-63 over the last three games. Of course, they’ve lost the last three games. Hmmm.

The Canadiens have looked small in comparison to the Flyers and haven’t gotten traffic to the net like Philly has. They’re not in Biron’s head yet and, at this rate, likely never will be. While the Habs have taken plenty of shots and even had plenty of so-called chances, nothing seems to register or rattle Biron. That’s a problem if Montreal intends to win the series. A bigger team would probably have made a bigger dent.

But the plan in Montreal is for more of the same. “We just lost three games and when I’ll sit down with the coaching staff I don’t think I will want to change anything we’re doing,” Canadiens head coach Guy Carbonneau said. “We’re playing great. But Martin Biron is playing great right now.”

Maybe my definition of great differs from Carbonneau’s. A 7-for-51 power play in the playoffs isn’t too great. Nearly losing to the Boston Bruins in the first round isn’t too great. And failing to score despite massively outshooting the opposition isn’t too great either.

Game 5 is on Saturday night.