While a full 82-game regular season NHL schedule still remains up in the air for the 2012-13 season, the beat will go on in the virtual world. NHL '13 is set for release on September 11, 2012, and we're slowly, but surely starting to learn more and more about the game.
Today, EA released the player ratings for Western Conference teams, which of course includes our beloved Predators. Follow after the jump for ratings (minus the new guy), OUTRAGE and a fancy graphic:
As a Predators fan, I think you have to be pleased with these ratings, because it looks like, for the most part, they went with the best case scenario.
A few things that stand out:
EA still has Paul Gaustad on the wing. Come on, he's a center. It was frustrating last year having to switch he and Craig Smith's spots on the fourth line, and then having to put him on the PK. Anyways....
Is Martin Erat really as good as David Legwand?
Brandon Yip is a full "four" better than Gabby Bourque (lol).
Everything looks to be ok on defense. Weber 90, Klein 78, Gill 80, Josi and Ellis low 70s, but will probably improve, Blum 81- OH MY GOD. WHAT ARE YOU DOING EA?
Rinne at 89 is - I think, correct me if I'm wrong - a slight drop off from his rating last year.
The Nashville Predators have addressed the lack of experienced depth on the blueline by signing free agent defenseman Scott Hannan to a one-year contract. This provides some backup on the left side, where the depth chart currently has a lot of youth outside of Hal Gill.
Quoth the Preds:
Nashville Predators President of Hockey Operations/General Manager David Poile announced today that the club has signed defenseman Scott Hannan to a one-year, $1 million contract.
Hannan, 33 (1/23/79), has amassed 197 points (33g-164a) and 522 penalty minutes in 908 regular-season games and 15 points (1g-14a) and 89 penalty minutes in 82 playoff games with San Jose, Colorado, Washington and Calgary since the 1998-99 season. The 6-1, 225-pound blueliner enters the 2012-13 season having played more games than any NHL defenseman in the last 10 seasons (798). Hannan dressed for 75-or-more games for the 11th consecutive season (78), and averaged more than 20 minutes of ice time for the ninth time in the last 10 seasons (20:21) with the Calgary Flames a season ago.
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The folks up in Calgary seem to have been pretty happy with how he fit in last season, and I think he makes a nice fit here. He can play a basic, reliable type of game and can hopefully soak up some of the tough minutes allowing guys like Roman Josi to be put in a position where they can succeed.
As for Jonathon Blum? The pressure to earn a roster spot may have just gotten a bit tougher, but a seven-man unit of Shea Weber, Kevin Klein, Scott Hannan, Hal Gill, Roman Josi, Ryan Ellis and Jon Blum looks likely. At least with Blum, there's a comfort level there that he can play either side, so he may serve well as the 7th D.
Today's entry in the jersey number series presents us with a wide sampling of players from Nashville's hockey past. We have scorers, pluggers, thumpers and fighters all vying for your vote as the Greatest #19 of them all...
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Andrew Brunette
Brunette was a member of that first Nashville Predators team, and back in the 1998-99 season he chipped in 11 goals and 20 assists (with just 65 shots!). He will always hold a spot in Preds lore, however, as it was he who scored the first goal in franchise history, in a 3-2 win over Carolina on October 13, 1998.
He was traded in the summer of 1999 for a 5th-round draft pick, and has gone on to play over 1,110 games for a variety of different teams.
Mike Watt
Picked up via waivers for the 2000-2001 season, Watt patrolled the left wing for 18 games (1 goal, 1 assist) that year for Nashville, spending the rest of the time in Milwaukee. He was traded that summer to Philadelphia, but played only 5 more games in the NHL from that point on.
Martin Erat
More commonly recognized for being #10 in your program (but #1 in your hearts), Erat wore #19 during his first two NHL seasons, 2001-2002 and 2002-2003. In his rookie campaign he put up a respectable 33 points (9 goals, 24 assists) in 80 games, before spending most of the next season with Milwaukee. After that, he rebounded into full-time NHL work starting with the 2003-2004 season, bearing his signature #10.
Jim McKenzie
McKenzie had a long run as a hulking, physical winger who made Nashville his 9th and final NHL team during the 2003-2004 season (just after having won the Stanley Cup with New Jersey). While he put up just one goal and three assists during his 61 games as a Predator, that did bring up him to a nice round figure of 100 for his career.
Brendan Witt
Perhaps the first big Trade Deadline acquisition by the Preds, Witt was acquired in March 2006 from Washington in exchange for Kris Beech and a 1st-round draft pick (which later became goaltender Semyon Varlamov, now with Colorado). He was a huge thumper on the blueline who added toughness to the Nashville defense. After Nashville's playoff run fizzled against San Jose in six games, Witt signed as a free agent with the Islanders that summer.
Jason Arnott
Signed as a free agent in 2006, Arnott added genuine scoring punch down the middle. Out of his four seasons in Nashville, three of those are listed in the team's Top 10 in goal scoring, and he still holds the franchise mark for goals in a season with 33, set in 2008-2009.
Some fans didn't appreciate his lack of "rah rah" attitude on the ice or in the press, but Arnott stepped into a leadership role in 2007 after the Great Fire Sale and led the team to a remarkable playoff berth when the team's future in Nashville hung in the balance. It was his blast that ended Dominik Hasek's NHL career in 2008, and who knows what would have happened in that series against Detroit if Alex Radulov hadn't concussed him in the ensuing celebration. He left the Preds via the Matt Halischuk trade in June 2010, having compiled 107 goals and 122 assists in 275 games.
The battle over the NHL's next Collective Bargaining Agreement is truly joined.
Now that the two sides have exchanged proposals, and each has pretty much dismissed them out of hand, observers around North America are waiting to see where and when either the owners or players are willing to make a move towards "the middle", whatever that truly means.
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Travis Hughes sat in on a conference call as NHLPA Executive Director Donald Fehr updated the media, and responded to questions about whether the players would be willing to come down from their current 57% share of Hockey Related Revenues, down to 50%:
"Let me caution you when you start talking about 50/50 splits," Fehr said. "If you start talking about all revenue as opposed to hockey-related revenue, the way we calculate it the players are already at just about 50/50. Hockey-related revenue begins by subtracting some amounts of revenue. They don't count. What I'm saying is that if you add those things back in and then take what the players get, we calculate that to be about 51 percent."
Fehr said that the players are compromising directly off the start based on the fact that the league has a salary cap.
"Suppose the players came in -- as we have not done -- and we said, 'This is what we want. We'll have no salary cap, have a minimum salary and benefits, which will be a small fraction of the salary bill, and all the owners can pay whatever it is they want to pay. They can adjust their salaries up and down based on what they think is best for them. Whatever the free market produces, in a real free market, the players will take.'"
He continued.
"The reason we have a salary cap is because the owners believe -- and they are correct -- that the salary cap we have now pays the players less than what the free market would pay them. That's the starting point from the players' analysis, but the players are willing to live with that if we can work out an agreement."
The argument from the owners' side of things when it comes to a 50/50 split of revenues is that the two sides are partners in building and growing the NHL as a business. But Fehr rejects that idea whole-heartedly.
"If we are partners, do we have joint control?" Fehr asked. "Do we get to have an equal say on how the marketing is done, how the promotion is done, where the money is invested, where the franchises are located? Do we have an equal say on when teams are sold, where the money goes? Do we get part of that? Do we have an equal say on how the television arrangements are done?
"Do we have an equal say on anything? That's what a partnership normally implies."
The bottom line is... they're not really partners at all in the sense that Fehr is referring to, and the players have zero chance of getting "joint control". This is, quite simply, a power play. The owners have a chance to significantly tilt the league's financial parameters in their direction, and the stakes involved make it important enough for them to consider extreme measures in order to achieve it.
The change in tone coming from both the owners and players in their public statements regarding the Collective Bargaining Agreement negotiations has fans and reporters alike ratcheting up their odds that at least some time will be lost to a lockout this fall. This morning's hockey notes kick off with two local writers tackling that issue, then include two of the most mind-numbing takes on the labor situation I've seen yet...
Best of Nashville 2012 - The Nashville Scene
This year they have a reader poll for "Best Sports Blog". Can you help us defend our title from 2011? Vote daily!
Nashville Predators News
The Hippodrome: The Quarterback Battle Heats Up To Tepid | Pith in the Wind J.R. raises the delicate question of what happens to the money already plunked down on tickets for games which might get cancelled in the event of a lockout.
What if a Lock-Out Happens? A Hard-Core Fan Perspective | The Predatorial Jeremy shares his memory of the previous lockout in 2004-2005.
Top Moments From 2011-2012 – #7: Release The McGrattan | The Predatorial This certainly goes into the vault as one of the highlight fights in team history, but I remember having my son at that game, and he asked why those two guys were fighting. I had no good answer, it was just a sideshow.
Nashville Predators' Roman Josi tries to fill defensive role | The Tennessean Josi is the favorite right now to play alongside Weber on the top pair, so he's preparing now to be in shape for the job.
The Slate | Admirals Roundtable Ryan breaks down the just-released AHL schedule, which features 10 sets of 3-games-in-3-nights. Ouch!
Around the Wide Wide World of Hockey
Rolling newsletter: Could the NHL really consider contracting teams? | Dallas Stars Blog Mike Heika could have saved himself several paragraphs by just writing "Howard Bloom is an idiot".
NHL: Big Market Success Should Be Determinative | Overtime Richard Pollak doesn't see why big market teams want CBA change, because things are already going so well for them. *facepalm* Has a big business ever sat back and said, "nah, we're making enough money as-is"?
Time on ice competition plots for all 30 teams | NHLNumbers.com Real perty graphs, following up on work earlier this week about a new way to describe a player's Quality of Competition.
Next Year’s Big, Stats-Based Edmonton Oilers Project | Edmonton Journal Bravo to these gallant volunteers, it's just too bad the league doesn't formalize and publish stuff like this.
Michigan Daily and Kitchener Rangers Settle - Western College Hockey Blog Peace breaks out.
Cheating your height and weight in the program: a hockey player’s how-to | Backhand Shelf Did I tell you that I'm really 6'2"?
Goalie Equipment on rare "10% Off Everything" sale! | Hockey Gear HQ You poor goaltenders, I really pity you. Your gear is ridiculously expensive, and sales are few & far between. That's why you need to jump on this one.
We had a genuine exchange of volleys this week in the NHL CBA talks. The NHLPA made their initial proposal (finally, and with celebration by the hockey media) and the owners pretty much blew it off, so now both sides are taking a few days to sort through the issues and plot their next move. Part of the reason Shea Weber won't be at Monday's Town Hall is that Donald Fehr is meeting with several players up in Kelowna, B.C. early next week before negotiations resume a few days later.
Your morning hockey notes include a number of articles looking at what might happen in the event of a lockout, not just with regard to NHL players, but what it might mean for the development of the game at the youth level in the U.S....
Best of Nashville 2012 - The Nashville Scene This year they have a reader poll for "Best Sports Blog". Can you help us defend our title from 2011? Vote daily!
Nashville Predators News
The Hockey News 2012-13 NHL regular season predictions: No. 8 - The Hockey News
In their day-by-day tease of conference standing predictions, THN has the Preds making the playoffs again.
Around the Wide Wide World of Hockey
Potential Lockout Could Halt Record Hockey Growth in U.S. | The United States of Hockey Interesting numbers on youth hockey levels the last time we had to suffer through a lockout.
Revisiting the 04-05 lockout, when NHLers dominated the world’s hockey leagues | Backhand Shelf Yeah, back when David Legwand owned the Swiss second division!
Fixing the NHL crisis in five easy steps - sportsnet.ca I really like what Michael Grange has written earlier this week, but this? Ugh.
Ghost-tweeting and the NHLPA’s propaganda machine | Backhand Shelf So... either Jordin Tootoo was possessed by Henrik Lundqvist, or they've both got the same ghost-writer manning their Twitter accounts.
Canes Now - History lesson: owners usually get what they want | newsobserver.com blogs Instructive words here.
NHL-CHL agreement has expired; just don’t jump to conclusions - Buzzing The Net Some folks got excited about the possibility that young draftees might jump right to the AHL, but don't bet on it.
Wings cancel prospect tournament - Detroit Red Wings ...as was indicated a few days ago, they're doing this due to the labor uncertainty.
Ryan Miller Is The Highest Rated Goalie In NHL 13, But Should He Be? - Die By The Blade Controversy!
Posnanski: Paterno offered a complex challenge – USATODAY.com Not hockey related, but the story of how the Penn State scandal broke out while sportswriter Joe Posnanski was preparing a biography of Joe Paterno, and how he had to adjust on the fly, is fascinating.
With the Skate of the Union Town Hall meeting coming up on Monday, August 20th at Bridgestone Arena, a number of folks have been asking about the timing and details of the event. Just a short while ago, the Nashville Predators sent out the following:
WHAT: Nashville Predators' Skate of the Union Town Hall Meeting
· Event highlighted by player autographs, open skate, select a seat/open house, Pro Shop deals, an auction item fire sale, Smashville Rewards demo, Smash Hit Karaoke and Town Hall meeting.
WHO: Nashville Predators players, executives and personalities
WHEN: ThisMonday, August 20, 4-8 p.m.
· 4-5:30 p.m. - Open skate
· 4:30-6 p.m. - Photo opportunities with select players
· 5-6 p.m. - Player autographs on concourse
· 6:15-6:45 p.m. - Q&A with select players on stage
· 6:45-7:45 p.m. - Town Hall meeting with Tom Cigarran, Jeff Cogen, Sean Henry, David Poile and Peter Horachek. Questions may be submitted online via social media and at main doors of event
NOTES: Players scheduled to appear include Jon Blum, Mike Fisher, Paul Gaustad, Hal Gill, Kevin Klein, Chris Mason, Brian McGrattan, Craig Smith and Colin Wilson.
Attendees to Monday's event will receive a special discount of 25 percent on tickets to Petey's Preds Party on September 17.
The Predators flagship radio station 102.5 The Game will broadcast live from the Skate of the Union Town Hall Meeting.
Free parking will be provided in the Sixth Avenue parking garage (corner of Sixth and Demonbreun).
This all leaves one question hanging in the air... why the heck isn't Shea Weber scheduled to appear?
Update: Per the Preds, Shea has a prior commitment to a hockey school and NHLPA meetings.
I know some Preds fans got their hackles up when the guys on the 3HL raised the question of why he wasn't at the press conference following the team's decision to match the $110 million offer sheet, but it strikes me as really, really strange for a guy not to show his face in town for more than 3 weeks after a deal of this magnitude has been struck.
Anyways, it should be an interesting time Monday night... who will I see there?
