It’s been an amazing 72 hours as players are moving everywhere, and often to places you would last expect. Amonte to Calgary. Holik to Atlanta. Gonchar to the Pens. Pronger to Edmonton? As the mad dash for news flames across the internet, people everywhere are looking to scoop eachother to earn prestige and power on their respective discussion forums.

This leads me to one of my greatest pet-peeves about this lockout and the internet. I’ve bit my tongue for long enough, as I have finally gotten tired of this evil plague that has spread across internet discussion forums unabated.

This plague is Eklund, the false hockey god.

Eklund is just like John and myself, and every other blogger on the net: A bunch of people posting their opinions, generally not worried about whether others care. Eklund has somehow amassed a following that would have shamed David Koresh.

Despite the fact that his rumors site is batting about .010 in the accuracy department.

Make no mistake about it folks, Eklund is a plague, and you are the carrier. In these hectic days of free-agent orgies, Eklund’s “rumors” - usually lifted off of legit news sources, and usually posted AFTER they appear elsewhere - are being posted everywhere. And I mean EVERYWHERE. He’s infected Hockeyforums, letsgowings, Calgarypuck, Scout.com, even Hockey’s Future (would link, but their server sucks and the site is unreachable… but that is another rant.) I could go on, and on, and on, and on.

And while I rant against Eklund, I also have to say I am impressed by him. Despite the fact that he is incorrect nearly 100% of the time, he has hundreds of loyal zombies refreshing his site every minute, desperately hoping to spread the virus to their home forums. All the while, he collects money from banner ads and from direct donations. One cannot help but to be impressed at how well he controls the sheeple that follow him, and how easily he has used them to fatten his own pockets.

Me, I refuse to follow the herd. I have never visited his site, and I will never visit his site. For the sake of every message board on the internet, I hope anyone reading this does too. He’s gotten fat of the naivity and ignorance of hockey fans long enough. Let this phenomenon die already. The internet will be better off for it.

The NHL is sponsoring a Survey of Fans… You might want to check it out…

Of coruse, they don’t ask what you don’t like about merchandising offers or several other aspects of the game that you could comment on but itmight be wortha few minutes if you are a really big fan…

Thanks to David at The Ice Block.

A couple of Days ago, NHL Gong Show took a jab at the Toronto Maple Leaf fans because of some speculation coming from the fanbase over the impending free agent fallout

Well, I can tell you that the Leafs ain’t got crap on Montreal Canadien fans when it comes to Vincent Lecavalier.

Since his drafting in 1998 I have heard massive amounts of variations of rumors coming from Les Habitant fans who want their native francophone back in town…. Every friggin’ year there is another rumor of a trade, another speculation… Another wishful plea that the laws of physics will suddenly change so that the Canadiens can have the local boy wearing the Red white and blue.

And of course this year, Vinny’s own words have set off an avalanche of the desperate fantasy of Les Habs… Witness just one Montreal fan (posting on the Tampa Bay Lightning Usenet Newsgroup) and his blissful arrogance:

several reports such as team 990, and hockeytrade rumors have statd
that tb’s goalie niko, is leaving, and tb will deal vinny to the habs
for the newly drafted goalie carey price.

….

This rumor is buzzing like crazy. If Tampa cant get rid of St.Louis,
Vinny could be in the Red White and Blue before the end of the Week.
Vinny likes it in Tampa just fine, but has a desire to play for Mtl.
Supposidly Tampa is asking for Price, Ryder and KOMI.

its said that gainey was instructed to select price, in order to trade
him, ryder and komi. its team 990, go to team990.com and listen for
urself..

Every friggin’ year… Every year they send out rumors that are more and more off the wall. Every year they make less and less sense. It’s a habit up there. Is something in the water? Is it the mayo on the hamburgers? Is it the fact the once glorious franchise has lost it’s former luster?

Between the fans and the media - it’s pathetically hysterical to watch this over and over again… And annoying as well.

Pronger traded to Edmonton, Bobby Holik to the Thrashers, big money contracts all around for guys who don’t deserve what they are getting paid, and now Chicago is a major player.
Yes, that Chicago… And no, I am not just basing this on their signing of Adrian Aucoin.

I’m basing it on the new speculations where Nikolai Khabibulin will end up.

The Trib reports that Brad Lukowich is fielding offers from several teams right now.

Now, people are goingg to complain about the Lightning standing still and how big a mess they are getting themselves into by doing so. There’s one factor that’s easily dismissed - how many RFA’s have been re-signed with their teams? Just how many FA’s are still out there on the teams making these big signings? That’s food for thought.

Until we start seeing major RFA signings it’s going to be hard to guage just how painful some teams are going to have it under the cap. The Lightning see escalating salaries for the likes of Vinny, Dan Boyle, Martin St. Louis and other FA’s but how fast will the payout bubble burst in the res tof the league? Or are the Lightning being much more conservative under the cap than they should be?

How fast will the cap tighten for every team in the league with these numbers being thrown out for Gonchar, Gelinas, and the like? Now RFA’s have their asking prices with thanks to UFA’s who put up similar numbers.

If THIS offseason is crazy, just wait for the next few off-seasons when the market corrects itself and teams realize they can’t afford players they want to keep around, thanks to these signings that are taking place today.