Tuesday news

The rosters are freshly updated with cuts made yesterday for many teams. There are some teams for whom trying to track rosters is just a hopeless endeavour so any updates that anyone can provide are always welcome.

The Not-So-Super Series begins its second half with the first of four Canadian installments tonight in Winnipeg. Does anyone still care? Yeah, I didn't think so. Let's call it off now and let these kids get to their NHL camps on time.

Speaking of Team Canada and NHL camps though, John Tavares is feeling left out. Once again he raises his desire to be granted special player status and allowed early entry into the NHL draft, the way he was allowed early entrance to the OHL when he was 15. As it stands he's not eligible for the NHL draft until 2009 because he was born five days too late for the 2008 draft. He makes a decent case; he truly is a phenom and hey, it's only five days too young, not 364 days here. But the NHL isn't going to change the rules because once you open that can of worms....

Although I must admit I'd like to hear Oiler G.M. Kevin Lowe's take if the NHL does allow Tavares into 2008. Lowe, whose team has an excellent chance of being the NHL's worst team this year, has already surrendered his 2008 first round pick to Anaheim as part of the compensation for signing Dustin Penner. So the Oilers finish dead last, win the draft lottery, ....and Anaheim gets Tavares. You think Lowe is unpopular with Oilers fans now, wait until that happens.

Everett has cut five more players and are now down to 29. Well, 32 if you count Peter Mueller, Zach Hamill, and Leland Irving, who aren't in camp right now. In my view they are 100% likely to get Irving back and almost that likely to get Hamill back so those two should probably be counted in their total. Mueller, that's a different story. With Phoenix rebuilding, he could stick there.

Good wrap-up on Blades camp and how the roster is shaking out there. Sounds like the staff have some difficult decisions to make, but hey, that's a good problem to have. Better to have too many qualified players and not enough jobs than the other way around.

Incumbent Tigers goalie Ryan Holfeld discusses his feelings about the Tigers picking a goalie in the import draft rather than handing the starting job to Holfeld.

Cougars coach Drew Schoneck gives his take on camp so far, including how the team did at the Edmonton exhibition tournament. Concerns about backup goalie Joel Danyluk? Not according to Schoneck.

Nice feature on Kelowna rookie Kyle St. Denis here. A Kelowna question though that maybe somebody can answer - I thought the main paper in Kelowna was the Daily Courier. If so, why has there been almost nothing in that paper about the Rockets so far? By comparision, the Capital News has had several good articles.

Edmonton has pared six more names off their roster today. Spokane has cut three more players as well. And Lethbridge has cut down to 30 players too although they don't feel the need to tell anyone who is left.