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All is pretty quiet as the St. Louis Blues prepare to draft defensman Erik Johnson first overall later this month in the NHL entry draft.
Mike McCarthy of Sports Capital Partners was in town this week meeting with Blues scouts and several personnel including Larry Pleau.
Fox Sports Midwest Executives also gave McCarthy a presentation explaining how they plan on delivering Blues broadcasts on television.
An update on Prongsfluenza:
The local outbreak continues to spread as a reported 44,000 more people were admitted to area hospitals following Chris Pronger's goal on a penalty shot in game one. I will continue to provide updates as they become available.
The Blues apparently really appreciated the amount of thank you cards they received in the mail last week from Edmonton fans.
That was very generous of you.
Several prospects were invited to St. Louis for private workouts this week following the NHL combine in Toronto.
14 players were invited to attend and 9 nine showed up.
Al macinis and Keith Tkachuk stopped by to say hello to the future NHL players.
Key players in attendance:
Jordan Staal (I found itodd that Staal attended the Cardinals baseball game with his friends as opposed to watching his older brother Eric play in game one of the Stanley Cup finals. The cardinals game was part of th itinerary put together by the Blues staff.)
Phil Kessel
Peter Mueller
Key players not in attendance:
Erik Johnson (attended a awards banquet)
Jonathan Toews
Kyle Okposo
UFA delay?
There has been some discussion about unrestricted free agency being pushed back past July first to allow teams to digest the changing cap level and to avoid escrow.
The NHL agents discussed this issue last week in Toronto at their annual meeting.
As it stands right now, it doesn't look like any changes will be made and the CBA will stay as planned.
The Players Association Executive Committee still could vote via conference call sometime at the end of this month although this scenario is unlikely. The Owners would have to obviously agree to have UFA pushed back as well.
The talk has been to have the free agency period begin the second week of July instead.
This could be a major issue coming up at the GM meetings in Vancouver on June 23rd.
Speaking of vote, the board of Govenors will be voting whether or not to approve Dave Checketts as the St. Louis Blues next owner at the BOG meeting Wednesday June 21st. Checketts still needs to file the necessary paperwork to the league before the BOG executive committee can do their due diligence on Checketts. Sources close to Checketts tell me the paperwork will be filed by the proper time.
Broadcaster John Davidson has accepted a deal to become the Blues next President.
As to who will be the next General Manager in St. Louis remains unanswered. A very strong source told me several weeks ago that Pleau will be reassigned within the organization. I will assume nothing has changed on that front.
NHL Executive Colin Campbell remains a candidate even though I have been told he turned down an offer from the Blues to serve in a different capacity.
I am hearing that Campbell would like to run the entire show if he were to leave his current position with the league.
That only makes sense, if I were running the hockey operations for the entire league, I probably wouldn't want to leave my current position to go work for someone else. The fact that Campbell and Davidson are very good friends make this possibility very interesting.
What would make things even more interesting would be if former hockey great Mark Messier became the Blues next GM.
I am hearing Messier would like to work with a club in hockey operations. I have also been told the chance of this happening is slim, but on a slow day in June it is worth throwing out there.
Having a inexperienced GM work with an inexperienced President doesn't add up very well. With that being said, I think Messier would have adecent idea on how to put a hockey organization together.
Former Rangers star Adam graves is also a likely candidate to become a GM one day. Graves Currently works in the Rangers organization as a special assistant to Glen Sather. Graves is one of the smartest people in the game; he is very well spoken and has a firm grasp of the CBA, as he was very involved with the NHLPA executive committee during the 1994 lockout.
If Graves chooses, he will be a General Manager in the NHL before too long.
Congratulations to Neil Smith who was introduced as the newest GM in the New York Islanders organization. Smith has been waiting for this opportunity for a quite a while now and has a pretty big challenge in front of him.
Smith and the Islanders began discussions in January and he had been waiting for Islanders Owner Charles Wang to make a decision. Wang finally did also hiring Ted Nolan as the head coach. Smith did not factor in the decision to hire Nolan.
Rick Olczyk, the brother of Ed, is a strong candidate to become the next assistant general manger with the Toronto Maple Leafs. Nashville has also expressed interest; St. Louis is an outside possibility.
Rick is a very smart man who deserves a shot. Sources in Toronto tell me John Ferguson Jr. has told Olczyk not to sign with any organization without checking back with Toronto first.
Former Blue Scott Mellanby who skated with Atlanta this past season is back in St. Louis playing on the charity golf tour. Mellanby is expected to retire although he is apparently having second thoughts about playing one more year. Mellanby played better last season than he did prior to the lockout and hasn't shut the door on giving it one more go.
Blues Clues!
Kelly Chase and Chris Kerber will return as the radio play-by-play team for this season. The team has one more year on their current radio deal with 550 KTRS.
Don't be surprised if the Blues make a push to sign veteran power play specialist Brian Leetch next month.
Mike Sillinger would be a perfect fit for the Blues as they continue to move forward. The Blues will have to compete with Dallas, Calgary, Tampa Bay, Colorado, and Nashville if they want to sign Sillinger who is coming off a career year.
Expect the Blues to look for a veteran goaltender in free agency to back up Curtis Sanford. The Blues would like a guy that can give the club a solid 25-35 games.
With former first rounder Marek Schwarz signing last week, don't be surprised to see St. Louis move a goaltender via trade on draft day.
More to come,
Andy Strickland
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St Louis Blues Blogger •1380 ESPN • 
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