Playing catch-up

After ten days with no web access, I'm back today and trying to catch up on what I have missed....of course most of this is old news to most of you but I'll run it down anyway....

The Hitmen have a new head coach, with Kelly Kisio stepping aside to focus full-time on his G.M. duties like he did for the first eight years he was the G.M.....taking his place as head man behind the bench is his assistant for the last two years, Dave Lowry. I think this is a good move in general as I really think both these very demanding jobs should have only one person doing them. I don't think the Hitmen will miss a beat as Lowry and Kisio are/were very similar coaches.

There also may be a ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds over the Portland Winter Hawks. Apparently a group of ex-Hawks now in the NHL like Brent Peterson, Brendan Morrow, Marian Hossa, Ray Ferraro, Scott Nichol, and pro golfer Peter Jacobsen (a Portland native) are interested in buying the team. Whether this goes anywhere, we'll have to see....starting with whether the current owners are even interested in selling, that's the first question....

Bunch-o-trades made while I was away too.....the biggest is probably Chilliwack trading Cody Smuk and a 2009 3rd round bantam pick to Lethbridge for Jesse Craige and a 2009 8th round pick. I get why this is a good trade for Chilliwack to get Craige. But why is it a good trade for Lethbridge to trade him away? This can only mean though that Lethbridge is planning to use at least two overage defencemen - probably Ben Wright and Mitch Versteeg - next year because otherwise they have only three returning players on defence.

Close behind that one was Kelowna trading overage forward Colin Joe and import forward Milan Kytnar to Saskatoon for Saskatoon's first-round import pick and a 2009 5th round bantam pick. Getting Joe gives the Blades two overagers for next year now, while moving him out means the Rockets have only one. Look for the Rockets to pick up some more overagers somewhere else before the season gets well underway.

Medicine Hat dealt their 2005 first-round bantam pick, Jordan Hickmott, to Prince Albert in exchange for a swap of first-round import picks plus P.A.'s 2nd round import pick. Hickmott obviously has not panned out the way the Tigers envisioned three years ago....perhaps he can resurrect things in Prince Albert.

Seattle traded '91 forward Josh Lazowski to Red Deer for '90 forward Spencer Edwards and a 2nd round import pick. This is the second trade in two weeks between these two teams which sees one of Red Deer's underwhelming '90s sent to Seattle for one of Seattle's unproven '91s.

The least-significant trade was Tri-City sending goalie Kyle Jahraus to Seattle for a conditional 10th round bantam pick. A 10th round pick is weak enough, but conditional on him making the team....there's not a lot of confidence there that Jahraus will either make the team or be even an average player in the WHL.

As for the import draft, I might have more on the WHL picks in that draft later this week, we'll see. No rush I don't think. Two teams released 08-09 eligible imports though, Seattle releasing Jan Eberle and Kootenay releasing Jiri Ryzuk.

Also, some other teams must have released players although they have not announced it. Red Deer must have released either Tomas Polak or Juraj Valach in order to make their first round pick. I hear they released Valach but have not seen that comfirmed anywhere. Prince George must have released Jan Kupec in order to have made two selections. No surprise about Kupec though, I don't think. But Medicine Hat made two picks which means they must have released goalie Tomas Vosvrda, which I think is a bit surprising since he was pretty decent last year.

Oh, and there was that NHL draft thingy. I hear it took four hours to make the first 30 picks. Who does the NHL think they are, the NFL? I always thought the NFL's first round was the "sports event" most bloated with needless time-wasting and commentator blabbing.....I mean, you've been watching the eligible players for 364 days, if you need 15 minutes to decide who the best player available is then maybe you're too stupid to have that job. The NHL might be making a move on that title. I say, five minutes per pick....no more. If you don't have the first syllable of your pick's name out of your mouth 300 seconds after the last syllable of the previous pick's name came out, you lose the pick.

NHL free agency starts tomorrow....bunch of trades and signings happening in the last couple days there as teams try to get their vulnerable players locked up before everyone else gets a crack at them. Former WHL #1 overall bantam pick Jarret Stoll was traded from Edmonton to Los Angeles yesterday for defenceman Lubomir Visnovsky.