Crickets Part 1

Precious little has come from the Ducks front office the past week or so. Sami Vatanen signed over a week ago and since then nothing. As a matter of fact, there was almost nothing the week before Vatanen signed his two year deal.

I find it quite odd that there has been absolutely no chatter about the team's two other important restricted free agents Jakob Silfverberg and Devante Smith-Pelly. (cue the chirping crickets)

If there were friction between GM Bob Murray and the player's agents, we would have heard something by now. By now as other teams have signed similar players to contracts and have set the market. Surely Murray doesn't want to drag this out to training camp. It would be much better to get these guys signed to new deals and have it over with. Then Murray can turn his attention to other matters such as locking up Patrick Maroon and Matt Beleskey who are coming into the final year of their respective contracts, with new deals.

It all begs the question, “is there more going on here?” You've been wondering it as well. It feels like the Ducks have another bullet in the chamber and are waiting for the right time to fire. A top pair defenseman would be nice as would a top-six wing.

Perhaps management believes it would better to delay signings to see where the payroll is, if there is a deal in the works. I believe that is a bad plan. I'm sure both players would like to get their contracts signed and a delay for that reason would make it look like Smith-Pelly and Silfverberg were after thoughts.

Crickets Part 2

You know it's slow when:
+ It's news that Nail Yakipov changed his number from 64 to his preferred 10 now that Shawn Horcoff is gone.
+ The guy my colleague, Blackhawks blogger John Jaeckel referred to as “The Greatest NHL Player Never To Have Played”, Kevin Hayes is a headline item.
+ I'll leave you to fill in the rest.

Crickets Part 3

If you were wondering where I've been the few days, I have been in an intensive two week training program for work. My head hurts from it all. I figured the best way to relieve some of the pain is to talk/write about hockey for a little bit.
-Ed

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