Home, Home Again

I had the (dis)pleasure of being in the general Western New York region during "Black Sunday" when the Sabres lost both Daniel Briere and Chris Drury to free agency. The text messages I received were frustrating and hilarious all at once... (the displeasure came from subjecting myself to 10 minutes of the local sports-talk radio)

Anyways, I obviously missed the free agent frenzy which was covered to extremes by virtually any/every blog in the blogroll to the right.

Possibly the most interesting hockey site over the summer is the increasingly-important NHL Numbers which dutifully has kept track of every team's salary cap commitments. For the big splashes they made this month, the Rangers have some work to do in getting that payroll down at least USD$1.4million by September (this not even considering that Sean Avery and Marcel Hossa are unsigned...)

As for the rest of this month, I'm beginning work on the online SportsGrumblings.com 2007-2008 NHL Sourcebook, something we did over at the now-extinct SportsBlurb.com last season. We'll have the usual: detailed team/division previews, rookie previews, and a bunch of fantasy content - from fantasy 101 articles, breakout/bust players, and a detailed forecast on hundreds of NHL players. We were a little late on it last year but after working out the kinks we should have it ready by late August - keep checking back here for previews and ultimately a link to the final product. 100% free, btw.

NOTE: SportsGrumblings.com requires (free) registration - gives you an account/password. Yes, it stinks and I'm not generally a fan of the concept. But - and this is my Smooth Jimmy Apollo Lock of the Week - you'll never get any spam from them and your e-mail address isn't given to anyone. Which begs the question 'why bother' but that's not my call to make. Anyways, just some info to hopefully encourage people to check it out.


UPDATE: some conflicting reports about the Rangers' salary commitments - the NHLSCAP.com site lists New York as having USD$2.8 million wiggle room.