Well the day is finally here. July 1st is tomorrow and it’s akin to Christmas morning. The NHL world will be a buzz with rumors all day then then after noon the flurry of signings are likely to come crashing in. 

 Most teams have been taking a youth movement and budget woe’s approach in the media but for some that is just a cover as they will spend willey nilley as usual (see the Rangers, Leafs and Bruins). Some times will use the money wisely (Red Wings) and some won’t (again the Leafs and Rangers). I am excited to see allthe signings but for now let’s dig into my Canes and Isles.

I have alot more to say about the Canes b/c they have been saying alot more about the spending the last few weeks. And since I am a full season ticket holder for almost 10 years now I feel I am around enough and kinda have a vested interest in it as well.

First the Jock has a RANT. The # 1 thing I am enourmously pissed about it this crap Rutherford (canes GM) said a week or two ago. He stated that  the Canes intend to spend to their own cap of 43-46 million. Well genious, right now the team is sitting at 42 millionand 11 forwards 3 defensemen and 1 goalie under contract. This is not including Sanguinetti, Nash and Matsumoto that were acquired on draft day (all 2 way or minor deals which won’t impact the cap much). 

Next is the looming Rod Brind’Amour question. He is most certainly going to either retire, or be bought out.  His salary is 3mil (cap hit of 3.6, don’t ask it’s a long story for cap stuff that I don’t entirely understand to spell it all out here). He is now 39. Now, if my research and calculations are all correct he signed his 5 year deal when he was 34 and not yet 35, THIS IS HUGE. Under the salary cap rules if a player who had not hit 35 yet ends up retiring after 35, his retirement removes the ENTIRE cap hit. If this is so this is a no brainer. He is clearly done and word from some sources of mine in the end of the season said that his parents and children were at the last couple of home games in planning to see Rod’s last games as a player. So my only Q here is why the wait? He is clearly going to stay in the area with his kids and I am betting work for the Canes (like Ronnie Francis does) in some way. Is he waiting for them to buy him out so he can squeeze that last little bit of money out of them? This seems unlikely b/c that would kinda screw the team a bit. If he is bought out for 2/3 of his contract remaining (here 1 year). That amount would be a cap hit over twice the number of years of the remaining contract (here would be 2 years total). Granted 2/3 is just roughly 1 mil a year over the next 2 years. BUT, why hurt the team you will likely work for after retirement? Also, would you give a job to a man who just screwed you (even slightly) for the next 2 years? It all doesn’t add up and I hope he retires and if what I said was right the team gets abot 3 mil added to its cap space.

EDIT: Naturally just as I post this Brindy has announced a new conference to Retire. I have to say I will miss him as a player. (not that he was good last year I will just miss the real Brindy). He has always been one of the Jock’s fav players of all time. He fought hard on each and every shift and gave 150% to his team every night. No one will ever forget the heroics he showed in the cup run of ’06. Welcome to the front office big guy. Now let’s retire 17 next year. It needs to be done.

So back to the FA. So if the Canes and their own Cap have somewhere in the area of 2-3 or 5-6 mil (depending on Brindy) to spend then it’s going to be a crappy summer for us Canes fans. Here are the 2 scenerios. 1 It’s a summer like last summer where they signed the likes of Yelle, Andrew Alberts, Jay Harrison and trading for Aaron Ward (The Ward trade was the only one I liked of the bunch- A player who gives all of himself every night he is on the ice). As you can see not much of a splash. In fact it was a huge THUD which helped lead to the crap-tard season we had to deal with. OR 2. Ruhterford shows us the brilliance that was the signings before the lockout and 06 Cup year. He signed a bunch of low key guys who ened up gelling and making HUGE contributions. Names like Stillman, Whitney, Commodore and Cullen. Household names now in Carolina but before that I was unimpressed as a whole with the signings but I am the 1st to admit he did a GREAT job that year with the right signings.

What do I think? I think again, that we are screwed. I expect to see a summer full of me running to the transaction pages and listening to XM home ice every day only to be let down when we either don’t sign anyone or sign complete crap that won’t make much of a difference. They will likely be trying to use as many young guys as possible and get away with lower salaries this year so prolly not a whole lot of signings. Needing about 8 forwards at least 4 D men with 6 million max isn’t going to happen. So since they are now 17 mil! under the cap, I am hoping (well praying!) that they spend to around 49-50 mil range and prove me wrong.  I can also see them going with Peters as the backup most or all of the year, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they signed one of the ton of goalies out there to back up Ward and be there in case his back acts up again.

The Islanders have a lot of “work” to do. Yet, they have a shit ton of cap room. Roughly 33 mil! in cap room.  I say “work” b/c they have an amazing core of youth on the team. Tavares, Okposo, Bailey, Neilson, Comeau,Moulson. The Work is going to be getting some depth another role player and hopefully one or two decent bigger names up front.  On the back end they still have a stud in Streit and then it gets so so. Witt is a grinder and heart guy but at 35 he;s getting a bit slow (and likely to be bought out as well). Martinek(Injuries), and Gervais make decent 4/5 D men but they really lack a 2/3 or just say a true 2nd set of D (I am not sold on Freddy Meyerand Hillen to me is a wild card could be good could be a POS too early in his career to tell). There are only a handful out there so stay tuned on that.

My outlook for the isles? I think it’s going to be more fun to watch what the Isles do tomorrow then what the Canes do. I think the Isles might throw some money around and get a few exciting signings in. The only precaution is if Wang tightens the wallet a bit to try and make the books look good for the threatened sale thats been rumored, and more importantly the fact that FA’s don’t want to play in the Colluseum. It’s just a wretched building now. What used to be a hockey mecca is now just a piece of shit out of date building. And guys don’t want that.

Stay tuned, with any luck tomorrow afternoon and evening I should have some thoughts on the Day that was in the NHL Free agent frenzy day 1.

I have to say for a bad late 70’s movie, Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band is a great guilty pleasure. Everyone loves Beatles music and there are A LOT of people in the movie as well. All songs are well done too. Just ignore the assemblance of some sort of plot and enjoy the songs and cameos. It’s kinda like porn in that way. They give you all the songs which you really want to see but try and fool you to think there is actually a plot in it somewhere!
As an aside every time I look at the Gibb brothers, all I can see is Timberlake and Fallon. They look just like them lol.

Anyone else find it more then a little disturbing that every single one of these chef’s on Hell’s Kitchen smokes? I really would rather that a chimeny didn’t cook my steak thank you very much.

Tags: TV

It’s that time in the World of Warcraft release cycle. We have all sorts of great info on Cataclysm and every one of us who has played the game just wants it out already. As usual Blizzard has given us the “when it’s ready” announcement more times then I care to think of. Normally this is fine, b/c they have a proven track record for releasing great games (they also have a track record of pushing games back a ton of times but that’s beside the point). So the latest we heard it was “sometime in ’10”.  My guess?  I happen to think September myself, but that is only because I cannot imagine they want the game out AFTER Blizzcon has happened. People do not want Blizzcon to be more of a rehashing of last year and updating the Cataclysm info. To me that is epic FAIL. I would think they would like to spend this Blizzcon with a new announcement, such as maybe the top secret MMO they are working on, or an all access pass to either the next Starcraft II piece or oodles of info on Diablo 3.  Me, I want to see a shit ton of Diablo coverage, the new MMO or hell I would be happy if they announced the next expansion after Cataclysm but thats an odd wish on my part.

Ok back to the topic at hand. With all the release etc being a ways away there are a lot of WoW players who are simply bored to tears with the game (no, I am not even close to one of them). It is however, understandable. Mainly b/c we now are at roughly the 18 month mark of Lich King and a lot of people have done everything they plan on doing until Cat hits. Downing Arthas might still be high on peoples lists, but many people are realists and unless you are part of a dedicated raid team or they up the buff to ICC to ridiculous levels more then likely it’s not going to happen.

My remedy is a mix of old and new takes on what to do now. 1st, like many people I say level Alts. This game is so vast and fun and you can enjoy so much out of just about any of the classes. Every time I get a new spell or open up new dungeons to go to in the looking for group tool for a leveling toon, it just opens up a new part of the game. 2nd you can go to a different faction. I go 99.99% Alliance on my toons, so hey why not start a Hordie on another server or if you have the slots on your own. A bit extreme but still an option. And finally my favorite option is to either take one of your new 80’s (if you have one or one who will Ding 80 soon) or an old 80 that has only done 1 thing and RE-SPEC.

Here’s my story on this. I recently hit 80 on my 3rd and 4th characters. A Lock and Warrior respectively. The Lock I leveled 100% with Affliction and the Warrior an early combo of Arms then changed to Fury once I could get titan’s grip and wield 2 two-handers. Once I hit 80 on those 2 I decided that I would re-spec them both and do something new. So I changed the lock to Destro and the Warrior to Prot. Why? Well I just wanted something different for my Lock and for the Warrior until I got better gear I did it primarily to get into dungeons faster. After a few chain regular ToC’s I was ready to hit the random heroic charts.

Mainly I was completely amazed at how mch fun this was to do. It was like getting a brand new character at 80. The spells were different and the rotations different so it was fresh and exciting. I now am doing as much ranoms as possible to keep them geared up and my excitement for them is high b/c of just changing it up a little. Remember these really are just alts so live alittle have some fun!

I must stress a couple of things tho. Do your homework. Read the blogs and forums and sites out there that know. Go to wowhead mmochampion elitestjerks and wow.com. Get the specs right and get the rotations down. It wouldn’t hurt much if you did some dailies with your new spec so you know how it works and what works as a good “oh shit” button b/c every class has a few. You already have an 80 or two so you know how to play, but the key is to not think you know EVERYTHING. I have been playing the game since launch and I know there are still things about certain classes/specs I learn every day.

Give it a try and let the Geek know how you did!

As always feel free to mail me directly (Geekjockblog@yahoo.com)  if you have any WoW questions answered. I don’t claim to be the foremost authority on WoW but I can give you my opinions and help on what I do in fact know. And I welcome all Q’s!

Well last weekend was the NHL draft. This one of a bunch of favorite times of the year for a puck-head like myself. I love the trade deadline, day 1 of free agency, Opening day, and of course the DRAFT. Now I don’t claim to be an expert in the way of junior hockey and college hockey but I do my research around draft time and I go into it hoping for a ton of trades on draft day… well basically b/c who doesn’t love trades???

A major reason I love the draft is b/c I am a Hurricanes season ticket holder for about 10 years, and growing up on Long Island, a life-long die hard Isles fan. What does that mean? It generally means that I get to see one or both of my teams pick real high in the draft b/c in the last 20 years they both basically have either made big runs in the playoffs, or both really sucked.

This weekend was no exception as the Canes picked 7th and the Isles picked 5th.   I will start with the Isles since they picked earlier in the 1st. I went into the draft thinking the Isles would take a big D man b/c after the Taylor/Tyler boys went the next batch of studs were all D men. They were sitting pretty all set to take Cam Fowler at 5 when they came up there with “E” from Entourage (Kevin Connolly) in Charles Wang’s ENTOURAGE! (Wow see where I went with that one?).  I am going to get sidetracked here for a second. I love the fact that Connolly was up on stage. This is the type of stuff the NHL needs. Some celeb faces mixing it up. And Entourage is bar none easily one of my top 5 shows on TV right now. E always has Isles stuff on his desk, his screen saver is the Isles symbol and he wears Isles gear out alot when I see my wife bringing up the people web site and he’s on it. So Kudos Wang great to get something good started. (Now get the damn light house project done will  you!!!).

Ok I guess back to the pick. Well instead of Fowler the Isles took a forward. They went with WHL RW Nino Neiderreiter. I was surprised, happy and sad all at the same time. Surprised b/c Fowler was the clear choice here, happy b/c I loved Nino coming into the draft for one of my 2 teams, and upset b/c I wanted the Canes to take him at 7. But hey great pick Isles and I hope he pans out and not fizzles out like most of the Euros the Isles tend to pick then usually trade. The Isles also made a trade up to get the last pick in the 1st round and picked up big 6’3 center Brock Nelson. Awesome job I love this kid’s size and can’t wait to see him inaction as well. Good draft for the Isles and I love their youth movement and in the next year or two they should (hopefully) show what all this rebuilding is for. After all even Crosby’s Pens were not built in one draft.

The Canes at 7 also picked a forward in top goal scorer Jeff Skinner. Yes I said TOP goal scorer. While he might not have racked up as many points as Taylor/Tyler he was the best goal scorer in the draft ranks. This was a great pick. Rutherford hopefully had his crap together with this pick and with any luck in 1-2 more seasons he can join the team and contribute. However, as usual I will point out what I don’t like about this pick. Where he went. This was, to me, easily a place where the Canes could have moved down a few spots and picked up either a player or a pick or two and still landed Skinner fairly easy. All of the scouts had him in the teens range for ranking so likely he wasn’t on any real radar to go that high. However, if you like a guy and want him, why take the risk of losing him so this complaint is minor really. 

They then selected 5 D men with their next 5 of 6 picks. I won’t go into them individually much but I think Faulk and Alt are STUDS and also can’t wait to see them in a Canes jersey. What I think Rutherford was thinking with 5 D men is, we need D men so if I pick 5 of them surely we can get 2 NHL D men out of them down the road eh? 

I really expected the Canes to either move up in the 1st or trade for another 1st round pick. They had 11 picks in the draft and ended up doing alot with them but I kinda expected them to get another 1st rounder. Well technically they did get more 1st rounders they just had to trade some picks for former 1st rounders. Picking up C Riley Nash and Bobby Sanguinetti. They also picked up AHL 30 goal scorer  Jon Matsumoto from the Flyers. I don’t mind these trades b/c they are players who have fallen out of favor with their drafted teams but still all have some tallent and when Ron Francis is really high on Nash well I will give old Ronnie the benefit of the doubt here. I look for Nash to fight for the 4th center position this year but likely to be in the minors.  Sanguinetti will likely play this year for the Canes. He saw a little action on the Rangers last year but with training camp this year I think that might be enough to have him in a 4-6th D man on the Canes. Matsomoto is the typical Canes signing/pick. He’s a guy they will bring up from time to time to fill in and maybe get a spark here and there but I really don’t expect much at all from him. See Keith Aucoin, Mike Ziggomanis, Jerome Samson  , Patrick Dwyer. All are AAA+ guys to me. Guys who are great in the minors but never seen to be good enough to crack the top 6 on any team.

All in all a good weekend and draft for the Isles and Canes and I am happy with it. As usual you NEVER know about these things until they are 2-3 years old so hopefully looking back on it some of these guys pan out.

In a few days I will bitch about the anounced self cap that Rutherford/Karmanos has put on the canes and why I am not so happy about it. Should be a nice bitchy post which should be a good read!

GJ out.

Ok everyone Hold on tight The Geekjock is going to post…SOON. I have some posts coming about World Of Warcraft and about Last weekends NHL Draft and how my Canes and Islanders fared….

Until then… You stay classy internet!