Monday, July 09, 2007

Canucks re-sign Kevin Bieksa / Wings acquire Drake / Updates

The Canucks have re-signed Bieksa to a 3-year $11.25 million deal. That means he will be around just long enough to win a Stanley Cup with Vancouver. This also avoids a major headache next summer for Dave Nonis. Bieksa was looking like a steal last season at $525,000 per season. He has earned his raise no doubt about it.
Last season he played 81 games, had 12 goals and 42 points. He had 6 goals and 13 assists on the power play. He averaged 24:16 of icetime per game. I'd say that's well worth $3.75 per season. That's actually a bargain.

Pay no attention to new rumors of the Canucks being interested in Brian Gionta. One week it's Elias, next it's Gionta. It's all speculation and/or lies. Can you really see Nonis pulling off a blockbuster at this point? That will depend on how talks are going with Mattias Ohlund for an extension. Ohlund hits the free agent market next summer.
Nonis is probably going to bargain hunt a replacement for the departed Smolinski.


The Red Wings have announced that they have signed Dallas Drake to a 1-year deal. More details to follow. The Trail, B.C. native is an excellent gritty depth player who can chip in once in a while. The 38 year-old averaged 12:53 ice time last season with the Blues.
Drake career stats.
Here's another guy that would have made a decent Canuck.


The Coyotes have signed Mike York to a 1-year $1 million contract.


Oh boy. Daniel Briere's agent has said today that he never even received a call during this past season from Sabres' management to iron out a deal, according to the Fourth Period. These kinds of reports are only going to makes Sabres' brass look that much more stupid for not keeping one or both of the departed Briere and Drury. You can add the Oilers' stab at Vanek potentially to the above scenario. GM's need to secure their core guys early, or else possibly face the consequences.


I see Bill Guerin has already been named the Captain of the Islanders squad. Below is a picture of the Islanders press conference announcing the new guys, Sim, Comrie, Guerin, and Fedotenko. Look at Comrie, he looks like an 18 year-old choirboy!
















John Davidson looks pretty smug having lured Paul Kariya to St. Louis.












Kariya throws the first pitch at a Cardinals/Diamondbacks game on July 3.




More images found here at Yahoo Sports.



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8 Comments:

At July 9, 2007 at 12:35 p.m. , Blogger jimbuff said...

"The Canucks have re-signed Bieksa to a 3-year $11.25 million deal. That means he will be around just long enough to win a Stanley Cup with Vancouver." LMAO - I never knew you wre a comedian:) On a similar note I guess Fernandez will be in Beantown long enough to win a cup also. If you can dream so can I but realistically The Canucks nor my Bruins are going to win The Cup anytime soon.

 
At July 9, 2007 at 12:59 p.m. , Blogger Sean Zandberg said...

Bah! The Canucks have a better shot than the Bruins do! That's obvious!
Let's make a bet on whose team makes it further next season!!

 
At July 9, 2007 at 1:43 p.m. , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Egads... how much salary cap room do we have left? That leaves us with 5 million dollars to sign 8 players? :-0

 
At July 9, 2007 at 2:00 p.m. , Blogger jimbuff said...

No bet here - your team is definately better right now (and I doubt that you would actually travel to Labrador to pay mre if I won) but neither is no where close to cup contention yet.
If The Canucks do win the cup in the next 3 years Luongo will go down in history as the best player (not just goalie) of all time.

 
At July 9, 2007 at 2:06 p.m. , Blogger Sean Zandberg said...

Ah, we just got Miller! Hahah!
The Cup is ours!!! **sarcasm**

 
At July 9, 2007 at 5:05 p.m. , Blogger Mike said...

The only thing missing from the Kariya pitching picture is Scott Stevens jumping out from the dugout and blind siding him.

THAT would get me to pay attention to St. Louis baseball!

 
At July 9, 2007 at 6:13 p.m. , Blogger Sean Zandberg said...

Don't forget, Kariya would have to be wearing a helmut and visor so we could see it fogging up, and knowing he's still alive! LOL!

 
At July 9, 2007 at 8:55 p.m. , Blogger Unknown said...

Well, call me silly, but I was actually hoping Vancouver would nab Kariya. You know, the whole idea of bringing a player back to their hometown, in hopes they will get inspired to play better. Ah well...

But have to say, after seeing the pic of Kariya, I'm found myself shouting "You throw like a girl!!"

 

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Waiting For Stanley was created in June 2006.