In what could potentially be seen as a surprise move, this afternoon the Predators announced that defenseman Aaron Johnson has signed a one year, two-way deal Nashville. The 27-year old Nova Scotia native split last season between Calgary and Edmonton, playing 41 games in the NHL. If Johnson plays for the Preds, his contract is worth $550, 000, otherwise he;ll get $105, 000 at the AHL level in Milwaukee.

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Despite his relative youth, Johnson has already made his way around the league. In addition to playing with the Flames and Oilers, Johnson spent time with Chicago, the Islanders and Columbus, the team that originally drafted him 85th overall in 2001.

In 225 NHL games, Johnson has accumulated 46 points so he isn’t an offensive threat, but will this signing have any impact on the Franson negotiations? Franson is more of an offensive threat on the back end who would likely see more time on the powerplay again this season. The B.C. native is also someone fans want to see back in the Predators fold come this October. However, with training just two weeks away, is this a sign that the Predators are beginning to look elsewhere to fill out its roster at defense?

At least the contract is a two-way deal. It would have been shocking for the Predators to sign another defenseman to a one-way contract with Weber, Suter, Bouillon, Parent, Klein, and Sulzer already on one-way deals. If the Franson contract gets done, it will too likely be a one-way contract, meaning 7 d-men will be on one-ways. In fact, it could be the case (and this is 100% speculation) that maybe contract talks between the Preds and Franson have gone so slowly because the team wants to sign him to a two-day deal and he’s holding out. It wouldn’t be the first time a player wouldn’t sign because of the direction of the contract.

But for Johnson to sign with a team that is already stacked at the back end of the rink, with many prospects waiting in the wings to make it to Nashville (read: Jonathon Blum, Ryan Ellis and Roman Josi to name the obvious bunch), he still must think there is a reasonable shot at making the team out of camp. For the rest of us, this is probably just a depth move with Johnson spending a lot of time traveling the road between Wisconsin and Tennessee.

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Every Tuesday, Predlines will be bringing you the latest news and analysis from the Central Division. Because the Predators success largely depends on the failures of our divisional opponents, we need to track their every move throughout the regular, post and off season. If we’ve left something of note out, contact us at predlines@gmail.com.

This week was particular slow around the league in terms of hockey news. But it appears that signings are going to be fast and furious heading into training camp 17 days from now. As such, hopefully the Central Division Shakedown will heat up.

Chicago Blackhawks

Since last Tuesday’s news that Fernando Pisani signed with the Blackhawks, the only newsworthy tidbit of information to report is that Chicago will be on national television an NHL-high of 11 times during the 2010-2011 season. Compare this with the one national tv spot the Preds have in the United States on Versus (Nashville is scheduled to be televised nationally in Canada 3 times).

Columbus Blue Jackets

If you think Chicago being on national tv 11 times next season is a lot for a team that has imploded this summer (do keep in mind they are still technically Stanley Cup Champs despite the dramatic change in roster), what until you find out how many times Columbus is getting national exposure.

The Blue Jackets will be on Versus 3 times during the upcoming season, compared to the Predators one game. Hmmm…

In other Blue Jackets news, Wednesday afternoon, 6 Blue Jackets will be at the Cincinnati Reds ball game signing autographs and throwing out first pitches etc. etc. Jared Boll, Derick Brassard, Derek Dorsett, Mathieu Garon, John Moore and Kris Russell will shag fly balls in the outfield during batting practice.

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Detroit Red Wings

The only news out of Detroit is from their AHL affiliate. The Grand Rapids Griffins signed Curt Fraser to a new two-year contract. He will remain as the team’s head coach through the 2011-12 season.

Individual game tickets in Detroit are being advertised as low as $9.00. If you ever find yourself in Detroit on a game night, at that price, does it even matter who they are playing?

St. Louis Blues

A statue of Brett Hull will be unveiled during a pregame ceremony on October 9th, the home opener for St. Louis. They’ll be hosting the Philadelphia Flyers.

Yesterday, the Blues announced they had signed forward David Spina. The 27 year old native of Arizona has played for the San Antonio Rampage in the AHL for the last three years.

You are invited to follow us on Twitter @Predlines

Every Tuesday, Predlines will be bringing you the latest news and analysis from the Central Division. Because the Predators success largely depends on the failures of our divisional opponents, we need to track their every move throughout the regular, post and off season. If we’ve left something of note out, contact us at predlines@gmail.com.

Chicago Blackhawks

Finally, cap problem solved! Sort of. The Blackhawks have leased goaltender Cristobal Huet to a Swiss league team, HC Friboug-Gotteron, but Chicago will still have to pay the goaltender the salary due to him. Chicago is over $4 million past the salary cap limit for 2010-2011. Putting Huet on waivers and loaning him to the Swiss team will put the Stanley Cup Champs under the salary cap of $59.4 million. Nothing official has been released by the team, but the report from CBC suggests it is about to be a done deal.

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The Chicago Blackhawks have signed right wing Fernando Pisani to a one-year contract worth $500 000. Last season, Pisani scored four goals and registered four assists in 40 games with the Edmonton Oilers.

Columbus Blue Jackets

Former Predator Ben Guite signed a one-year deal with the Columbus Blue Jackets worth $575 000. Guite played 6 games in Nashville last season. In 64 games with the Admirals of the AHL, Guite tallied 8 goals and 13 assists for 21 points.

The Blue Jackets also announced that Brad Larsen has been named the assistant coach of the Springfield Falcons.

Detroit Red Wings

Detroit has signed Justin Abdelkader on a two-year contract worth $787 500 per season. Abdelkader played in 50 games for the Red Wings last year, collecting three goals and three assists and played 11 games for the Red Wings during the playoffs.

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St. Louis Blues

It is pretty slow in Blues Nation these days. Sorry folks.

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The Nashville Predators announced today that Patric Hornqvist has signed a three-year deal worth $9.25 million. Woot! Woot!

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A three-year deal is a bit of a surprise considering the dollar amount, but the important thing to note is that at the end of his contract, Hornqvist will only be 26 years old so he will still be a restricted free agent, with arbitration rights, but an RFA nonetheless. This means that if the Predators want to keep him, the team will have first dibs.

On the one hand, Predators faithful sighed a collective sigh of relief after waiting almost 2 full months since Hornqvist was extended a qualifying offer before he actually signed a deal. But on the other hand, last year’s leading scorer hasn’t consistently produced 30-goal seasons. A multi-year deal worth $3 million a season is quite the leap of faith.

Last year, Hornqvist got paid $650 000. The deal is one heck of a pay raise. But whether or not the $2.5 million raise is worth is up for debate. Don’t get me wrong, no Preds fan is disappointed that the Hornqvist deal got done. But what if he under performs next year? What if the pressure gets to him the following season and his productivity continues to decrease even further during the 2011-2012 hockey season? In other words, is there any chance of Hornqvist becoming the next David Legwand?

No one knows. Having gone from 2 to 30 goals from one season to the next is certainly promising for a Predators team that has traditionally lacked on offensive punch. In the 2008-2009 season, the Swedish native played 28 games for the Predators, scored 2 goals, added 5 assists, and had a minus 3 rating on 11:24 average ice time per game. This season, Hornqvist played an average 15:41 per game and led the Predators in some very important categories with just 4 minutes more of ice time per game. In fact, according to the Predators press release, Hornqvist’s average ice time was the lowest among the NHL’s Top-20 goal scorers last season.

In 80 games, Hornqvist led the team in goals with 30, power play goals with 10, he had a plus 18 rating and even led the team in shots with 275. These are fantastic numbers for a Predator who was 6th in ice time for forwards, with Colin Wilson only a handful of seconds behind Hornqvist.

Right now, Predators fans are excited about the signing and can’t wait for the season to start, with the hopes and yes the expectations that Hornqvist will at least equal his production from last season. If he fails to be the offensive powerhouse that is now expected of him, Preds fans may lose faith in the only GM the team has ever known. A man who always gets draft picks out of nothing. And a man who was able to sign one of the most coveted forwards in this year’s free agency frenzy. But yes the same GM that signed Legwand and Martin Erat to life-long contracts only to see their respective offensive abilities steadily decrease.

Drop the puck!

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Over the past few weeks, I’ve had a ton of fun writing about my favorite pro sports team, the Nashville Predators.  If cutting edge news presented itself, either myself or Amanda tried to be there to write something about it.  Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a lot going on right now, and I think everyone is well aware of that. 

I’d like to take a little time and share a few things with you.  I absolutely love writing, especially about topics I enjoy or am passionate about.  I also love sports, especially hockey.  Hopefully you have gathered that by now.  But, what I don’t love, is trying to force myself to write something when nothing is happening or dig all day to scrounge up small news tidbits like the fact that Ben Guite has been signed by the Blue Jackets.  He played for the Preds, so i suppose it’s relevant news, but seriously, does anyone really care?  Plus, the mainstream media outlets are usually pretty good about posting boring write-ups about personnel changes like the Guite signing that are usually nothing but a bunch of facts inserted into well-organized, easy-to-read sentences.  There’s nothing wrong with that, it’s just not me. 

So, let me tell you what you can expect from me, going forward.  Time out – I italicized and bolded “me” in the previous sentence, not because I am arrogant or vain (I’m not), but because I wanted to separate myself from my great writing partner Amanda.  She may choose to do things differently, and I think that’s fantastic.  When I read a sports publication, I enjoy reading articles by writers with different personalities that have varying points of view and writing styles.  I think that’s what you’ll find here at Predlines.  To quote the philosophical guy who said it first, “Variety is the spice of life.”

Time in – I’m going to give you my honest opinion, every time.  If I think something sucks, I’m gonna let you know.  If I hurt your feelings, I didn’t mean to and hopefully you’ll get over it.  If I say something you disagree with or am just plain incorrect about something, by all means, please leave us a comment.  I love a little disagreement from time to time and definitely want to be corrected if I provide inaccurate info.  Conversation can sometime lead to great points of view that neither party considered, which I think is cool.

Let me expand on the paragraph above.  Most of my posts will be opinionoriented.  I need to feel some emotion if I’m going to write about something.  When the season starts, I probably won’t feel inclined to give box scores after games and tell you who had the highest shot percentage in the 2nd period.  That’s just not who I am or what I aim to do.  What I will do is let you know who I thought played well, and who I thought stayed out partying on Demonbruen too late the night before.  I’ll tell you if I thought the coaching or officiating sucked.  I might even let you know which Predators goal girl had the best performance of the night…you know, stuff like that.  Like it?  Great.  Hate it?  Stay tuned, hopefully you’ll like the next post.

If you’ve made it this far into this post, congrats, and I’m almost done… 

I’m not here for play-by-play.  Think of me as the color commentary guy, but without the several years of professional game experience as a player or coach.  I’m going to show emotion.  I’ll probably screw up a time or two and have to call myself out for being an idiot, if someone else hasn’t already beat me to the punch.  At the end of the day, we are all Preds fans and are all rooting for the same team.  We won’t always be happy fans, we won’t always agree with moves the team makes, but we will support the team in victory or defeat as long as they are here in our town.  Let’s cross our fingers and hope they stay forever.

Just to let you know and clarify, we won’t altogether halt writing if nothing is going on.  If you don’t see a post, check back the next day.  We could post poorly written articles twice a day if we wanted to, but we want to give you blogs that we think are worth reading.  We currently have some pretty interesting articles in the works.  Word has it that The Hockey News picked the Preds to finish 10th in the Western conference.  Predlines will have a response… 

Thanks so much for visiting.  We really do appreciate it.  Just to warn you, if nothing super cool happens in the world of the NHL/Predators soon, you’ll start learning about all of my hobbies, because I will be writing about them.  Thanks again if you read the entire post.  I thought it would be good to put this out there before the season begins.

Follow us on Twitter @Predlines

Every Tuesday, Predlines will be bringing you the latest news and analysis from the Central Division. Because the Predators success largely depends on the failures of our divisional opponents, we need to track their every move throughout the regular, post and off season. If we’ve left something of note out, contact us at predlines@gmail.com.

Chicago Blackhawks

The big news out of Chicago this week was Patrick Kane in Buffalo with the Stanley Cup. The Cup got drenched by Niagara Falls. Kane visited a local cancer center, without media coverage, and walked the halls visiting with patients. Kane visited ironworkers at a local construction site, police and firefighters. Kane even went to a local floor hockey rink to play a game with friends.

Kane brought the Cup out at a Jimmy Buffet concert too. You can check out the video here:

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Was this the same Kane that beat up a cab driver just one year ago and was caught on film partying in a limo at the start of the 2009-2010 season?

The other news out of Chicago was that the Blackhawks resigned defensemen Nick Boynton to a one year deal worth only $500 000. This is a significant pay decrease from last year’s salary. Boynton was a member of the Stanley Cup winning team. Blackhawks fans must be super happy about keeping one of their UFAs.

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Columbus Blue Jackets

It is a slow, slow SLOW summer for Blue Jackets fans. But last Tuesday afternoon the team announced the re-signed restricted free agent Mike Blunden to a one-year contract. The 23 year old left wing recorded two goals and two assists in 40 games for Columbus last year. Blunden played half the season with the Syracuse Crunch, the Blue Jackets AHL affiliate.

Detroit Red Wings

I got nothing.

St. Louis Blues

Last Wednesday, the Blues signed defenseman Dean Arsene to a two-way contract. The 30 year old played with the AHL’s Springfield Falcons last season in the Edmonton Oilers organization. He played 13 games last season for the Oilers.

(Photo Source: Yardbarker.com)

Where, oh where is Patric Hornqvist?  Many Predators fans, including myself are dying to know the answer.  Last year, in his first full NHL season, Horny led the team in goals (30), plus/minus rating (+15), and points (51 – tied for 1^st).  The Predators don’t have a stable full of 30-goal guys, so I’m not too sure what they are waiting for.

Although the front office staff has accomplished quite a lot with a bunch of little-known, low salary players, they have also been known to pull the trigger and spend a little from time to time.  Although I’m still convinced it was for pure marketing hype, we all remember when Peter Forsberg once wore the Nashville Predators blue and gold.  To obtain Forsberg’s services, we paid dearly in the personnel and the finance department.  We traded two players, two picks, and picked up the remainder of his multi-million dollar salary…not cheap by any stretch of the imagination. 

Yes, I know that Pete sold lots of tickets and generated extra revenue in the short-term, but setting our team up for another great season full of wins, will be the best move for the team’s long-term financial well-being.  Patriq Hornqvist will be a piece of this success, as soon as the front office suits stop sitting on their hands and start signing some papers. 

I don’t want us to just throw away money and pay him millions of dollars over the next twelve seasons.  I just want him re-signed for the next two or three years.  If he wants $30M over six years, he’s smoking crack and can take a hike.  But I say if he’s asking something like $3M a year…pay him.  $3M might seem like overpaying a bit when you put him up against comparables, but what do we have if we don’t sign him?  We have an extra $3M lying around that we can spend on a bunch of 5-8 goal players.  From what I can tell, we are doing exceptionally well in the average player department.  Actually, maybe a better use of our extra cash should Hornqvist slip away, would be to lower ticket prices after we finish the upcoming season with 80 points.  According to my supercomputer, $3M would allow us to shave about $4 off of every ticket. 

Restricted free agents should be re-signed every time if they have value and the team can afford it.  We definitely have the cap space, and I’m pretty sure no one will go broke if we give the kid a few extra bucks to pay his hair stylist. 

David Poile.  Give the Nashville faithful what they desire.  Sign Horny and stop playing games.  If he ends up being a one-hit-wonder, you will be forgiven.  Just get the damn deal done already.

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I’ve written about a few of my fondest memories as a Nashville Predators fan.  I’ll carry these with me for as long as I’m alive.  I could easily give you a hundred more examples of awesome Preds memories, if I had the time.  And, that would be too easy. 

Everyone sports fan has been let down by their team…

Today, I’d like to share two of the biggest punches to the groin that I have ever experienced as a Preds sports fan.

2010 NHL Playoffs – Game 5

I’m not going to write a whole lot about this game, as the videos speak pretty clearly for themselves.

Ouch…That hurt…really bad.  Good thing we have overtime.  Let’s Go Preds!

FAIL!

I literally stared at the television in disbelief, for what had to be, 10 minutes.  Sure, we were going home for game 6, but I did not have good feelings about it.  It turns out, my gut was correct. 

A day or two after our early exit from the playoffs, I forgave the team.  We had done so much with so little, and our failure was not much of a surpise to anyone.  So be it.  Lucky for hockey fans without a dog in the race, the rest of the playoffs were spectacular…Unless you are/were a Bruins fan…

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Before anyone gets too offended about anything I write, keep in mind that I love both of the leagues that I mention in this blog.  They are like children that I will always love unconditionally, but in different ways.  The NHL is my hard working child who makes me proud every day, although some others might not see his brilliance.  The NFL is my meathead football player kid that’s gonna end up becoming rich and famous because of his good size and freakish speed.  He will be successful and people will always notice him.  Hopefully, my NFL son, scores better than Vince Young’s alleged score of 6 on the Wonderlic test.  I’m confident that my Hockey kid would at least score in the double digits.

Regardless of the sport, especially at the professional level, preseason games serve their purpose.  Sure, the revenue generated by television deals, tickets, food & beverage, and everything else that comes with a preseason game is a big business for the teams involved.  However, the main purpose of these games, from a personnel standpoint, is to condition returning players and to identify talent so open roster spots can be filled.  Football teams, at the beginning of the NFL preseason, are gargantuan.  Hockey squads have a similar bloated look during the preseason.  But, by the time the regular season begins, it’s the same story in either league.  Preseason comes and goes, rosters get trimmed, and grown men cry.

Sunday night, the National Football League kicked off their 2010-2011 campaign with their preseason opener, the Hall-of-Fame game.  The Dallas Cowboys were victorious, as they defeated the Cincinnati Bengals by a score of 16-7 (who cares).  I consider myself to be a pretty big football fan, but give me a break.  Preseason football just doesn’t do it for me.  I’m sure there are plenty of NFL superfans that started their countdown to training camp as soon as the Super Bowl ended, but I’m not one of them.  Those are the guys who actually tuned in Sunday night and analyzed each and every play…crazed football lunatics that also like Mel Kiper Jr.’s unique hairstyle and awkward personality.  I know they’re a one-off breed, but we need fans like these to write the football blogs.  However, it’s likely that they despise preseason hockey, which would make them ignorant and foolish, unlike me.  If I felt like it, I could continue with this mini-roast of our NFL blogging counterparts because they are probably too busy playing Madden 11, released Tuesday, to have the time to hunt me down and hurt me.  So, if anyone reading this had an employee call out today, ask yourself, “Do they play Madden?”  If the answer is yes, please go easy on them.  The yearly Madden release has been known to cause grown men to act a little foolishly.  Now back to hockey…

Preseason hockey presents itself differently to me, even though it’s essentially the same thing that you’d find in the NFL.  Veterans and returning team members get their work in to prepare for the regular season.  Younger, unproven players try to show what they’ve got and crack one of the few vacant roster spots.  Those who make it, make it, at least temporarily.  Those who don’t are destined for something else.  Despite the unfamiliar look of some of our preseason game-time rosters, it still feels like the games played leading up to opening day are actual hockey games as opposed to the boring Sunday scrimmages of the NFL preseason.  Maybe the game of hockey is just a game that masks the dullness of preseason better.  Maybe young hockey players trying to make it to the top are tougher and play harder than the youngsters in the NFL.  Perhaps the NHL is a far superior league than the NFL, but only we true hockey fans have the mental capacity to understand this.  Whatever the reason, I’m counting the days until I can feel the rush of watching hockey in the Music City again.  Bring on the NHL  preseason.  I’m ready for it.

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