Puck Podcast – June 21st, 2008

June 21, 2008 Doug Stolhand Podcasts 10

In this week’s episode of the Puck Podcast we give you a complete recap of the 1st round of the 2008 NHL entry draft with analysis of each pick from our draft expert Mike . We also talk about the big trades that went down in the past week including a new home for Olli Jokinen, Alex Tanguay and R.J. Umberger as well as discuss the Thrashers new head coach, a pair of lawsuits that may remove the Rangers ownership and dead octopus from the league and tell you who the newest Hall of Famers are. We’re also joined by Thrashers center Steve Rucchin who will tell us about a charity event he’s holding and what the future of his career is. All that and a whole lot more in this episode of the Puck Podcast.

MP3 File

For more information on Steve Rucchin’s charity golf tournament or for more information on how you can donate money to help please visit www.facingoffforecharity.kintera.org. Any amount you could donate would help and I plan on donating $20. If each of us could donate at least $5 we could raise thousands of dollars to help a very worthy cause. – Doug

About Doug Stolhand 27106 Articles
Doug Stolhand is one of the co-founders and co-hosts of the Puck Podcast and has been a member of the NHL media since the show's inception in 2006.

10 Comments

  1. I think Tiger’s “nobody watches” comment wasn’t as bad as his jubilant laughter when asked who would win, and saying “good one” as if it was an obvious joke. But who knows, maybe it was. I don’t know who asked him that question, but maybe it’s someone well-known for not liking hockey?

    You guys should check out Chris Osgood on Jim Rome’s show. Rome is a guy that I didn’t think knew what a faceoff was. But it’s a pretty good interview, and I’m sure about six minutes longer than he’d normally spend on hockey.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cDsqU-MIzY

  3. Jim Rome does his radio show in the same building I work in and I know he actually is a hockey fan. He used to do more hockey interviews then he does now but he will still occasionally have a hockey player or coach on. I happened to be listening to his show on my drive home the day after the Wings won the Cup and he had Nicklaus Lidstom on.

  4. Eddie,

    I was an intern with fox sports when they tried to go head to head with espn and Rome did the last word on that corner behind the news set. When his show was just in LA he would have Gretzky on all the time and would always say “I am a Pimp for the NHL”

  5. I don’t know how much exposure there is outside the Tampa Bay area on this story, but I thought it was a classy move by the Lightning and new owner Oren Koules.

    The Lightning selected David Carle, brother of Sharks defenseman Matt Carle, with the 203rd pick. The story is that during the combine, Doctors discovered a problem. They diagnosed Carle with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy — a genetic thickening of the heart that can cause a sudden heart attack, especially under great exertion.

    Oren Koules’ son attends the same high school that Carle graduated from in Minnesota.

    “But this has nothing to do with our personal relationship,” Koules said. “The kid worked his whole life to be drafted in the NHL. I didn’t see a reason why he shouldn’t be.”

    Here is a link to the story.
    http://www.tampabay.com/sports/hockey/lightning/article637626.ece

  6. I can see where Draft Mike is coming from saying that Jordan Eberle could be a bust — though I disagree personally — because pure goal-scorers in junior are always a bit sketchy, but I don’t know about “not drafting the superstar they need.” I mean, don’t you pretty much have to have a top three or four pick to have a decent chance at an immediate “superstar?” Fine, the Oilers squandered a number of high picks in the mid-90s (I’m looking at you, Jason Bonsignore and Steve Kelly), but I think they’ve done well by taking Ales Hemsky and Sam Gagner in the first round in recent years, and they certainly have upper-echelon potential, though this year will be the year that decides whether Hemsky becomes great or merely stays pretty good (during the 30-game stretch between Dustin Penner getting back into shape and Shawn Horcoff going down to injury, he was racking up points at a career pace). The team’s recent struggles are more directly attributable to some tough trades (Pronger, Smyth), suspect signings (Souray, Penner), and an absurd number of injuries (nearly 700 man-games in two years). Okay, and our 2006 playoff goalie turning into a pumpkin. But yeah, the draft record is pretty far down the list of stuff that’s giving us headaches.

    Also, Calgary as winners on draft day? Maybe in terms of the guy they picked, I don’t know him, but in terms of the trades, not even close. They save $1.9M in cap space by effectively exchanging Alex Tanguay for Mike Cammalleri, but the savings vanish when you consider that A. Cammy’s gotta get paid next year, and B. Cammalleri is not a Tanguay replacement; he’s a Huselius replacement (Link*). Cammalleri and Huselius are no great shakes at even strength, but great on the power play; Tanguay is the reverse (in fact, he was one of the top producers at even strength*, adjusted for ice time, in the whole NHL in 2006 and 2007). Tanguay had weak numbers last year because he was put in a role he was ill-suited for, due to the sheer lack of depth in Calgary’s forward corps; they’re basically a one-line team at this point, with Cammalleri-Langkow-Iginla and nine guys named Steve. (Langkow’s resigning is the worst-kept secret in Calgary: it’s been out there since before the playoffs.) Montreal’s getting a hell of a player, who can do things no one else on their roster can, and who’s going to make them measurably better five-on-five next year. They’re the real winners of the evening, I think.

    * – The stats used in both links breaks down a player’s production by situation (even strength, power play, penalty kill), then corrects for their ice time, expressing everything as a rate per 60 minutes of ice time. May not be safe for the mathematically disinclined.

  7. Oh, BTW, Draft Mike, you’ll find a fellow draft nerd in Lowetide. He’s obviously Oiler-centric, and does other stuff, too, but he does definitely follow all the major scouting services, as I presume you do, and if you go down the page a bit, and onto the second and third pages, there’s a whole wealth of draft-week posts you may enjoy.

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