Grosso just tweeted:
#BREAKING - Leafs and Blackhawks are the frontrunners for Jimmy Vesey. NYR/NJD just slightly behind, hearing BOS is low on his list.

(Or what mrpaulish said!)

EDIT TO ADD:
@RumorBreak Source said he really doesn't care if he is closer to home. Wants to play with good players and a good team. Coach also a factor
- Marlowe

If that's true, Babcock and Q make a lot of sense. Hawks definitely have the advantage for "good team."

Perhaps lil Arti's going to skate with Toews this year and Kane is the one that needs a winger. Hence the vesey, kane meet and greet schmooze festival of funtastic Chicagoey groovy time groovy town happy happy joy joy jimmy come on down slickolicious crap fest of fudge and fun.

Show him the party Kaner!

Perhaps lil Arti's going to skate with Toews this year and Kane is the one that needs a winger. Hence the vesey, kane meet and greet schmooze festival of funtastic Chicagoey groovy time groovy town happy happy joy joy jimmy come on down slickolicious crap fest of fudge and fun.

Show him the party Kaner!
- hocktock

Hocktock, your turn of phrase never fails to make me smile.

Perhaps lil Arti's going to skate with Toews this year and Kane is the one that needs a winger. Hence the vesey, kane meet and greet schmooze festival of funtastic Chicagoey groovy time groovy town happy happy joy joy jimmy come on down slickolicious crap fest of fudge and fun.

Show him the party Kaner!
- hocktock

Sounds like a SEC college football recruiting trip

Hocktock, your turn of phrase never fails to make me smile.
- pdx2ord

Ditto! Thanks Hock dude for keeping it light around here!

#Veseycircus


Vesey to sign with the KHL... News at 11!

Its an eastern KHL team so he will be close to home.
- z1990z

Ha. I think it would be the WESTERN KHL teams that would be closer to home. Eastern KHL teams are Siberia!

More Grosso:
When you have Babcock, Matthews, Shanahan, Lou, not to mention your dad and your brother convincing you to join the Leafs...(1/2)

Its really hard not to have the Leafs high on your list. Chicago however has Kane+Toews+Quenneville and is ready to win now. Close race.

EDIT: doesn't look close at all IMHO!

Chicago Chronicle. ‏@TheChiChronicle 24m24 minutes ago
The #Blackhawks are also interested in Notre Dame's, Thomas DiPauli. Shares an agent with Harvard's Vesey.

Another LW prospect who just became a free agent under same rules.

Wiz et al have given us such a wealth of prospect info this summer, not sure if this guy was discussed or not.
- pdx2ord

I wrote this back in 2012 on him:

http://www.draftsite.com/...er/thomas-di-pauli/17975/

It pretty much hold true. He played some centre too.

It is a stretch to try and compare him as a comparable to Jimmy V.

More Grosso:
When you have Babcock, Matthews, Shanahan, Lou, not to mention your dad and your brother convincing you to join the Leafs...(1/2)

Its really hard not to have the Leafs high on your list. Chicago however has Kane+Toews+Quenneville and is ready to win now. Close race.

EDIT: doesn't look close at all IMHO!
- Marlowe

Hawks need to add young talent 9n ELC's hopefully they win this contest.

Al , being pretty confident makes me happy

If true, guess it comes down to whether family/possibility of being core to a rebuild or winning now/learning from top-ranked vets is more important.
- pdx2ord

Really interesting. CHicago has big advantage of star players and win now.

If you hold any truth to the rumors on coach perception, Chicago has the edge there too as Q has been long known as a players coach and most like playing for him as well as all the time off he gives.

Babcock on the other hand has been long rumored to be very tough and difficult to play under as he can be a hard arse/perfectionist

More Grosso:
When you have Babcock, Matthews, Shanahan, Lou, not to mention your dad and your brother convincing you to join the Leafs...(1/2)

Its really hard not to have the Leafs high on your list. Chicago however has Kane+Toews+Quenneville and is ready to win now. Close race.

EDIT: doesn't look close at all IMHO!
- Marlowe

Babcock has a lot of detractors that have played for him. Hard to argue with his resume, but most of the Detroit roster commented between the lines they were happy he was going

More Grosso:
When you have Babcock, Matthews, Shanahan, Lou, not to mention your dad and your brother convincing you to join the Leafs...(1/2)

Its really hard not to have the Leafs high on your list. Chicago however has Kane+Toews+Quenneville and is ready to win now. Close race.

EDIT: doesn't look close at all IMHO!
- Marlowe

Also, if you look at it through the lens of who is going to support him more and get him more points, the Hawks are miles ahead. He's going to get a ton more points with 19, 88, 72, etc than he is with the Leafs top group.

Hawks need to add young talent 9n ELC's hopefully they win this contest.

Al , being pretty confident makes me happy
- mrpaulish

This will come down to what I said awhile ago....Big fish small pond or smaller fish in a bigger pond.

The "pond" being the team not the city...The allure of Toronto is the mystic of the mecca of hockey-If that matters more to Vesey that's where he will end up because Babcock and Shanny can be persuasive.

I will stick with Chicago.

If that's true, Babcock and Q make a lot of sense. Hawks definitely have the advantage for "good team."
- JRoenick97

I have always thought Babcock was overrated as a coach. He only managed to win one cup with the Wings. Who for about a 4-6 year stretch were loaded. I would argue every bit as talented as the Hawks Cup winning teams.

Seriously, if you are an American hockey player, growing up in the past eight years, watching the playoffs, listening to noise the Madhouse would make when you score, whose jersey do you want to wear? Toronto or Chicago?

Seriously, if you are an American hockey player, growing up in the past eight years, watching the playoffs, listening to noise the Madhouse would make when you score, whose jersey do you want to wear? Toronto or Chicago?
- RedFeather

No kidding... its a no brainer choice. Kids today!?!?

Ditto! Thanks Hock dude for keeping it light around here!
- Marlowe

Thank you my hock lovin frents. I'm sorry to be so spotty on my tockin hockey but I'm drivin a truck delivering food to the peoples. Truckin and textin go together like Runblad and defense.

GO HOCKS!

For the guys speculating that the longer summer for Toews means he will be in best shape of his life, think you may be onto something - he just tweeted:

Longer off-season means longer training days. #onlyweekstogo #worldcupofhockey2016 instagram.com/p/BJOTxj-gGPo/

There are some similarities in the impact to Toews/Hossa last season, but the impact hit Hossa a lot harder. Toews even strength PP/60 dipped 12.5% while Hossa dropped off 36% to a career low. There is no question that if Hossa could have finished on more chances, that Toews would have seen very little drop in his production, despite the circus at LW on his line.

Not questioning your statement but where you are getting your metrics on shooting distance for Hossa? What I've seen on behindthenet.ca he didn't seem to be shooting from farther out overall. What I did notice watching Hossa play is that he had more difficulty driving the net and trying to turn it into a scoring chance. He also had an enormous amount of wasted chances with shots right into the goalies pads. I stopped getting excited anytime Hossa had a breakaway last season, because he just could not convert on those chances.

Speaking of deployment, for Hossa, I would just add that his deployment hasn't really changed drastically from his average in Chicago. There is some variance year to year, but not enough to make a significant difference. Line-mates and success of the team in general are a factor, but it is no secret that Hossa's scoring peaked between age 23-27 and he has been in slight decline since. as you know, it is typical of most players and also typical to see that decline accelerate in the mid to late 30's. I wouldn't be surprised if he nets around 15 goals this season.

Hossa is declining but bouncing back will be a whole lot easier if the Hawks find another LW.
- breadbag

Are you talking about impact by year progression or comparing last season to their career average with those numbers? Because especially for Hossa, you really should be looking at year-to-year decline (or a rolling average of a 3-5 year span comparison would be okay). Can you also explain where you get your P60 percentage decline numbers? Using hockeyanalysis, the ev P60 break down for Toews and Hossa for the last 3 seasons are:

Toews
P60 2.35 - 2.15 - 1.58
TOI 15:44 - 14:47 - 15:33

Hossa
P60 2.10 - 1.98 - 1.23
TOI 14:43 - 14:42 - 13:44

3 year span is still pretty similar, though I included TOI because it's important to note that Hossa's TOI at ev this last year was down a minute which fluffs his P60 stats a little. Another interesting stat to look at is IPP - individual points percentage, the percentage of goals scored while player was on ice that the player had a point on. Hossa and Toews have both remained consistent over the last few seasons despite because while they're not getting as many goals for other factors, they're being effected in a similar way by those factors. Toews has actually increase his IPP a bit because he's a more versatile, can-do-it himself kind of player at this point in his career. IPP for both at ev are:

Toews: 66.7 - 75.5 - 76.9
Hossa: 70 - 68.5 - 68.0

Shot location and passing stats are a part of the tracking projects that are more accurate than scrubbing sits like behindthenet, and average distance isn't necessarily going to be specific enough. Compare shots located by zone is more exact for this discussion imo. It's obvious that Hossa's shot skill has declined, but that decline is being exaggerated some by the fact he's taking more shots from farther out and getting less 'good' passes, I propose. Your observation that he is wasting chances is also correct imo, but the reason is likely due to him taking more of those shots now than he did in close previous years in Chicago, for whatever reason (could totally be your rationale, it's difficult to fully know).

Please note that I am in no way saying that Hossa's goal scoring has not declined due to age - it definitely has. But this whole discussion was started as an argument about Hossa's supposed status as a 3rd liner, which is just false base on most metrics. He may be next year, who knows, but he wasn't there yet last year. Goal scoring is definitely the area that seems to have taken the largest hit for Hossa, though his overall numbers are still top 6 worthy.

For those interested, here are some vizualization of per 60 stats and possession rates over the last few years for Toews and Hossa. The decline for per 60 is more a dip only last year, outside of goal scoring, but that other metrics are close with a soft and expected decline.

Toews:

Hossa:


PS. I agree with your last statement, but not to like any great bounce - I don't think he'll ever top 8-9% sh unless he magically clicked with someone of Kane's passing ability on his line.

For the guys speculating that the longer summer for Toews means he will be in best shape of his life, think you may be onto something - he just tweeted:

Longer off-season means longer training days. #onlyweekstogo #worldcupofhockey2016 instagram.com/p/BJOTxj-gGPo/
- Marlowe

Looks like Benn and Tavares in that video with him. Must be the World cup practices.

Pens out??
Per@ESPNJoeyMac
The Pittsburgh Penguins have re-signed veteran forward Matt Cullen to a one-year deal worth $1 million, the team...

Also NYR just signed a college UFA dman.

EDIT:
Per general fanager on Twitter:
With Cullen at 1 yr @ $1M, #Pens are $3.3M above the cap currently (14F/7D/2G), with Dupuis as $3.75M LTIR option.

generalfanager.com/pens

This will come down to what I said awhile ago....Big fish small pond or smaller fish in a bigger pond.

The "pond" being the team not the city...The allure of Toronto is the mystic of the mecca of hockey-If that matters more to Vesey that's where he will end up because Babcock and Shanny can be persuasive.

I will stick with Chicago.
- Al

I honestly don't care where this kid goes, I'm just sick of reading about him. You'd think he's the second coming of Gretzky and he hasn't even played a single NHL game yet IMO they move Panarin up to line 1 with Toews/Hossa and try out different combinations with Kane/Anisimov. PLUS for God's sake re-sign Panarin ASAP!!!!

This will come down to what I said awhile ago....Big fish small pond or smaller fish in a bigger pond.

The "pond" being the team not the city...The allure of Toronto is the mystic of the mecca of hockey-If that matters more to Vesey that's where he will end up because Babcock and Shanny can be persuasive.

I will stick with Chicago.
- Al

But doesn't he have some family working with/for the Leafs?

Like Mike Reilly, this could come down to Chicago vs. Family.

But doesn't he have some family working with/for the Leafs?

Like Mike Reilly, this could come down to Chicago vs. Family.
- StLBravesFan

His dad is a scout for them and his brother is drafted by them.

But doesn't he have some family working with/for the Leafs?

Like Mike Reilly, this could come down to Chicago vs. Family.
- StLBravesFan

Supposedly friends/family with other teams...

IMO-Comes down to how he can create the most value for his second contract.
The Saad example has to be strongly considered by the Vesey camp...

But to be clear I'm not comparing the two as I don't have a real feel for Vesey's ability.