Signed Swedish C Dennis Rasmussen to one year deal.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

The Cup is ours once again

Saw this comment on an article I read about the kid

"Have no idea who this dude is but I already like him more than Bollig."

Some info on him:

Rasmussen is described by EliteProspects.com as “[a] big and strong player. Reads the game well. Good defensively. Somewhat limited offensively, but valuable as a role player. Drives the net, strong along the boards and in front of the crease. Has good hands and a good release. Good penalty killer.”

Listed at 6-3 and 205 pounds, Rasmussen will turn 24 in early July. Last season with Växjö Lakers of the SHL, Rasmussen scored 16 goals with 24 assists in 52 games. In May, it was reported by the same outlet that Philadelphia and Vancouver were interested in Rasmussen.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Sounds like good Rockford fodder. We need a few more quality tweeners down there who can get the team into the playoffs and get our prospects more experience. If he can contribute to the big club, even better.

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We talked about our annoyance with guys gaming the system on post-icing draws, and it seems as if the league has addressed it. They're proposing that if you ice the puck, you get one chance at the draw and if you jump it, you automatically get two for delay of game. So to borrow tennis terminology, you take the draw with one fault. This in addition to forfeiting your personnel change should make teams more responsible about icing the puck, you'd like to think.

I like the move (pending final league approval). The intent of locking the bench after an icing is self-evident, and getting a few seconds back to rest by intentionally jumping the first faceoff circumvents that. Of course, guys will false-start without an intent to delay and get punished for that, but like with guys who don't mean to shoot the puck over the glass in their end, well, don't do it, I guess.

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They'll each get at least $9MM a year. If they settle for anything less, I'll be in awe.

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"He is a loathsome, offensive brute
--yet I can't look away."

Ok. I'm ok with that.

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"Play until it hurts, then play until it hurts to not play."
http://soundcloud.com/darkside124 HOF 2013, MM Champion 2014

Yeah, thanks for your contributions, bye. As with Mayers, Brunette, and O'Donnell, Stan thought we could get one last year out of him and thought wrong.

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Kane and Toews asking for $12M per year.

http://espn.go.com/chicago/nhl/story/_/ ... per-season

Yeah, we're kinda fucked after this season. They need to go all in for a Cup in 2015; with Toews/Kane each getting $10MM at the very least, you're going to have a major setback for at least a year or two.

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Unless the cap keeps going up...

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One surprising thing I read in all this today was that after this next season Saad is already a restricted free agent.

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Elections have consequences.

The cap is going up, but the Canadian dollar is going down, and the expected meteoric rise in the cap was predicated on Canadian revenue. Let's hope they get that magic pipeline built.


Entry-level contracts are three years. Slide in 2012, played '13, '14, and '15, there we are. It's funny how time flies. I remember being happy the day we drafted him.

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We're not fucked, but Q will have no choice but to play some youngsters. I believe that may be a good thing for this team, given Q's love for old slow washed up players like 'Zus & a few others.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

No, Toews and Kane accounting for nearly one-third of the salary cap will doom this team. They'll be what the Penguins are, but even worse off. Don't try to rationalize it with "at least we'll get to see some youngsters." We should be able to see youngsters and Sharp/Hossa/Seabrook. Best-case scenario at this point is that they each settle for 80 over 10, but even that's going to hurt this team going forward. I called this years ago. Captain McCaptain's loyalty isn't to the organization but to his union. Labor solidarity is practically bred into Manitoba and Saskatchewan. And that's fine, that's great, until it's at the expense of the team you'd like to win, and so maybe we should have been more careful about painting him as this loyal leader (of the Blackhawks, that is). I like Toews and Kane, they deserve their money, but it'll suck for it to be at the expense of the team ever getting out of the second round again on their watch.

Fact is, Toews and Kane may have already accomplished more than Saint Sidney ever will. It could very well be that they don't care about winning anymore and just want the money. I guess I can defend that; most professional hockey players don't win the Stanley Cup once in their lives, let alone twice. For all the crap people give Duncan Keith about being a dirty player and sort of an idiot, he was the guy who gave us the hometown discount to stay here. Imagine what he could have commanded if his deal ran out with two championships and two Norrises. That'd be a third player getting in excess of $10MM, and then we'd really be cooked. Of course, we can't give contracts like his anymore, but he still has a way more reasonable cap hit than you'd expect for that kind of contract.

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Nearly every other team in the NHL would love to have the problem that the Hawks have...two of the best players In the game on the same team along with some talented youngsters, and a great coach and organization. I'll take it.

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CSFMB 2014 Nascar Pick 'em Champion

We don’t have a trillion-dollar debt because we haven’t taxed enough; we have a trillion-dollar debt because we spend too much. — Ronald Reagan

It's still a really big problem if we can't get them under $12MM. Like, crippling problem, and I don't care how good Teuvo Teravainen and Adam Clendening are.

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Ben Smith and Antti Raanta back for two years: $1.5MM and $750K, respectively. Very happy about locking up Smith, iffy on Raanta, but the price is right.

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Do you think they'd let either Kane or Toews go? I was hoping for around 10M for them, I guess not.

The Hawks will sign Toews and Kane. That's not in question. The only question is to what extent Toews and Kane don't mind crippling their team. I think I said $9.5MM each would be the bare minimum. Now it looks like $10MM will be. Again, pray for the Canadian economy.

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This is why I've jumped on your Josh Ho-Sang bandwagon. For the foreseeable future we'll be what the Red Wings were with their high floor every year. We'll need as much premium talent possible. Sure, Ho-Sang is a scary black man and everyone says he's a throbbing penis. Maybe the psychologist the Hawks employ for who the hell knows why can root out some of the asshole behavior.

Yeah, but now it's looking like Ho-Sang will go somewhere between 15-25. Drat. But if he's there, they gotta take a chance on a high-ceiling guy. We don't lack for respectable foot soldiers. We need to roll the dice.

And what's the team psychologist's title? "Mental skills coach"?

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Yea, that's the guy!

Pulled from another offseason thread of ours, Raanta's baseline for a qualifying offer was $874,125. The reports are that they got him for $750,000. That's a coup, but it must also mean that it's a one-way deal, and I'm not sure whether he still has waiver exemption after playing so many games last year. It's different for goalies.

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Ducks got Kesler.

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Vancouvers gets rid of the idiot Gillis an Benning might be a bigger idiot. Impressive rip off by Anaheim.

Bonino is a decent player, but Luca Sbisa is garbage. Nice trade to make within the division, dickweed.

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Two more years of Jeremy Morin at $800K each. Glad to see it; always been a Morin guy.

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Cap might only be $68MM this year. Welllllllllllll, crap.

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