Everything Else

Tom Petty Wrote Something About This

By 1026

We’ve come to the precipice now. Jimmy Vesey hits the free agent market at midnight tonight. This is what hockey news in August is like, six teams fighting over a college free agent who probably maxes out as a second line winger. If you haven’t yet, check out Ryan Lambert’s piece on him today and what he can and can’t do. Ryan watches more Boston-area college hockey than most, so he knows of where he speaks.

I do find it somewhat funny that the main crux of the Hawks’ pitch to Vesey, because every team is going to offer the same two-year ELC with the same bonus structure, is essentially their biggest weakness. “We’re not deep enough at wing so you can play with Toews because basically we don’t have anyone else to do it.”

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Vesey Derby, Rankings, And Any Other August Mishegas

By 1043

Things move slowly for me in the summer. I’m sure I’m not the only one. So it took me five days to get to friend of the program’s Greg Boysen’s post from last week. To be fair to Greg, he’s taking this with a grain of salt because it comes from HockeyBuzz’s John Jaeckel, so I’ll double the grains of salt. However, as we’ve said repeatedly this summer, Jiri Hudler is a perfect fit and the longer he waits his price only comes down. That is if he is indeed focused on coming to the Hawks.

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Runds For The Exit

By 1034

This is what passes as news these days in hockey. A player who didn’t want to play for a team that didn’t want him was able to reach an accord with said team so he doesn’t have to. David Rundblad and the Hawks mutually terminated his contract and now he’s free to pursue opportunities elsewhere. As a side bonus, the Hawks get rid of all of his upcoming cap hit, so they don’t have to worry about buying him out or burying him in Rockford when they have a few young d-men they’d probably like to get as much time as possible (hi there, Gustav and Ville).

When reviewing Stan Bowman’s record as GM, you could make a case that Rundblad was possibly his worst move. At a trade deadline when the Hawks were simply screaming for anyone to play center that was not Michal Handzus or Andrew Shaw, Bowman’s only move was to give up a 2nd round pick, a pretty valuable asset as we’ve come to see, for a player that could only manage just north of 60 games over two and a quarter seasons for the Hawks. That deadline whiff clearly scarred Bowman, who has swung for the fences in the subsequent two trade deadlines, with varying success.