Sunday, June 29, 2008

King Stoll

Local boy Jarret Stoll, along with Oiler teammate D Matt Greene have been shipped to the L.A. Kings in exchange for salary-eating defenseman Lubomir Visnovsky. Terrier Coach Ed Zawatsky golfed in Stoll's Golf Tournament in Saskatoon last week... and Jarret told him he thought a trade was coming. He thought it might happen on draft day, and thinking back to the spring, he also expected to get moved on deadline day. GREAT trade for L.A. Stoll is going to blossom, and Greene is a solid young defenseman. Edmonton gets a great D-man back in Visnovsky, but I'm not sure he's worth the $7m he'll make in 2008-09. I remember hearing on TV that's what his price tag is, however it says he made just over $2m last season. GX94 newsman and Kings' Insider Brendan Wagner did tell me last week his 5 year deal was "end-heavy." I thought he said 5-year, 25 million... 3-3-5-7-7. B-Wags knows his Kings, watched them play all 82 on his Centre Ice package, so I'm not going to question Yorkton's only L.A. Kings' fan.
Stoll's a winner. Played World Juniors twice, won a Memorial Cup as Captain in Kootenay in 2002, heck, he even won Western Canadians with the Yorkton Key Chev Bantam "AA" Terriers... the team was just inducted into the Yorkton Sports Hall of Fame. He played 8 games in the WHL as a 15 year old with the Edmonton Ice, then went with the franchise to Kootenay for 4 more years... and as an 18 year old scored 40 goals, 106 pts and 105 pims in 62 games... then played in far fewer games the next year, but still got 32-24-66 in 47 games, en route to the Mem Cup title. Everyone tells you he's from somewhere else. Hockeydb says Melville, I've also been told Yorkton and Springside... **EDIT**... got a text back from Coach E.Z. after I shut the computer off last night, and he's from Neudorf, so there you have it.**...either way, he's a local guy, and he's on the move... the first of many deals leading up to and including the free agent period beginning July 1.

Ryan Malone's out of Pittsburgh... signed a 7 year deal with the Tampa Bay Lightning today worth over $30m dollars. Everyone thought that Chinese Owner for the Islanders was crazy signing Rick Dipietro to a life-long deal, but that's becoming the norm, with guys like Mike Richards, Daniel Briere, etc. Also today, Colorado re-signed defenseman John-Michael Liles to a 4-year deal. All for now.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

To clarify, Visnovsky's deal is front-loaded, something to the effect of 7-7-5-3-3. In any case, his average salary and cap hit for the five years is $5.6 million. It's a little expensive but clearly he has the ability to put up 60 points a year.

Craig Stein said...

ahhhh so i had it backwards. makes sense now. told you wagner knows his Kings.