First Post!

Hey all, I'd like to welcome you to my blog. First things first, let me introduce myself: I go by the pen name indavidual and for those of you astute enough to have noticed the typo, it actually isn't one (clue: my name is in there somewhere). Anyways, I've decided to start blogging in the middle of the dead season for hockey, as I figured there are crazy habs fans who are always in need of any kind of hockey talk (I confess: even I've been sucked into EKlown's (i.e. www.hockeybuzz.com) whirlwind of inane rumors (Kopitar for Gerber and Meszaros! um...sure) in these very lackluster times)

So here goes...
The UFA Season (So far) in Review

Well, let's start off with our dearly beloved habs. With today's signing of Ryan O'Byrne to a 3-year contract (per TSN), that leaves Montreal with all of their RFAs signed for next year. Of course, it also means there is less cap space for the possible Mats Sundin signing - 6.5 to 7 million. However, the cap shouldn't be much of a problem still, as call-downs to Hamilton or the waiving/trading of a minor player would take care of the difference (the Habs' offer to Sundin is believed to be around 7.5 million). Reviewing Bob Gainey's resignings of this year, they've all been respectable and Andrei Kostitsyn's was a steal (especially considering Jeff Carter got nearly 2 million more something like a week earlier). Bob's only UFA signing, Georges Laraque, initially seems like a good idea, as well, though how well he meshes with the rest of the group remains to be seen; if he does not fit in the system, he'd be a costly 1.5 million for 3 years. Ultimately, Bob has done his job for this off-season and if he does not manage to do anything with the cap space remaining from this year, there is still next year to factor in: Kovalev, Koivu, Tanguay, and Komisarek are UFAs and Higgins and Plekanec are RFAs...they're not going to come cheap.

Moving on to the rest of the league, I don't feel like analysing anything, but rather choose to laugh at Chicago in particular (good luck with getting rid of Khabibulin, guys). It's hard to say who the winners or losers will turn out to be yet (though you've got to admire Tampa's strategy of using 20 forwards), but right now it seems as though pretty much all the teams who dipped into the free agent market are losers: this year, the contracts have been grossly inflated (see Finger). It simply does not make sense to tie up large amounts of money into long-term deals, as I seriously doubt that the cap can keep on going up at the same pace forever, or we'd better prepare ourselves for another lock-out. The Russia signings have also grabbed headlines, but I'm not worrying too much...yet. They've managed to get washed-up veterans who once upon a time knew fame and glory, but now just want to cash the bigger paycheck. Once they can get more youths into their league (and they can't keep signing guys like Radulov to absurd amounts), then we'll see.

Anyways, that's my ramble for today. 'Til later.