National Hockey League (NHL) News

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ESPN SportsCenter reports- Stars agree to trade RW Jaromir Jagr (14 goals, 12 assists) to Bruins (4th in East)

That s a big get for the Bruins

Red wings need to pick their game up and play like the best franchise in the nhl...lets bring another one cup to hockeytown!!

Great series to watch between the bruins and hawks. Wish it would have went the other way but very entertaining.

Didnt get to watch much of the series but highlights looked good..hopefully red wings come back n make the cup next year

The Huge drama surrounding the NHL over the last week, was that star Russian Forward Ilya Kovalchuck announced his retirement. This is  big in many ways for the NHL and the New Jersey Devils  as it's not just an older player retiring and calling it a day.
Kovalchuck is in his prime at 29 years of age and only two years into a 15 year 100 million dollar contract. It was announced today, less than a week later that he signed to play in the Russian based KHL league for a 4 year 68 million dollar deal. While his reason for retiring and going back to Russia for family reasons are a understandable, why would he make such a commitment two years earlier only to screw the Devil over like this.
This opens up the door to any unhappy players(Russian so far) just retiring and bolting for greener pastures made entirely of money over in the KHL.
   This is especially painful for the devils, who originally tried to sign him to a 17 year deal circumventing the salary cap in the process. The NHL took a dim view on this a handed down a hefty penalty of a 1st and 3rd round pick in the draft and 3 million dollar fine.

Although this makes the Devils a much worse team this year, I think they are secretly pretty happy about it. This is because the team is struggling financially and looking for a new owner.This gets the rid of a large financial commitment going forwards.

Would like to know if this kind of thing has happened in any of the other major north American sports. It's like a top soccer player signs a huge contract say for Chelsea, then get's a better offer at Real Madrid. All the player has to do is retire from Chelsea and sign the new contract with Real Madrid. It Would just not be able to happen, so I'm not sure why it is in the NHL.

Maybe in football, not really sure. Most of the deals are done through team ownership and managers through trades.

I know on thing, a 17 year deal is staggering! Never heard of that long of a contract.

Thats crazy..its like a career commitment

Big news for the kings and avalanche today as they both extended the contracts of there captains.

Glad the Avalanche have locked up Duchene for five years, he will be our 1st line center for the foreseeable future. He is however not our captain, that honour goes to 19 year old Gabriel Landeskog. The center depth on Colorado is ridiculously good, it's just a shame about the rest of the team.

As for the kings signing I don't really like Brown. Mainly because he's a player you'd love to have on your team but he is a beast to play against.

i caught that after i posted, sorry bout that

NHL just approved the sale of the Phoenix Coyotes but say that team will remain in Phoenix

Thank god! is all I can say, they have been trying to sell the team for the last 4-5 years. The NHL itself has owned it since then, not sure why they put so much effort in keeping it in the desert. I know they had to re-negotiate the lease on the stadium and that the local council have had to agree to partially fund it also. Think this is just a short term thing, if they lose a certain amount of money in the first 3-5 years they can basically just move the team.

In other news, with the new lob sided conferences. 16 in the east and 14 in the west, it's looking like two more teams may be added to the western conference. Portland and Seattle are the two favourites with Kansas and maybe even Las vegas in the mix although less likely.

That would be great. Always nice to see the league grow.