In Red Wings Land

Steve Yzerman ‘thrilled’ for Tampa Bay’s Stanley Cup success - The Detroit News

Lawton expects Yzerman to be among 30 GMs to contact BriseBois about unrestricted free agents like forwards Tyler Johnson, Alex Killorn and Ondrej Palat with the Lightning squeezed up against the $81.5-million salary cap and still having to sign defensemen Mikhail Sergachev and Erik Cernak and forward Anthony Cirelli.

“Right now, they have 10 forwards signed for next year and that doesn’t include Cirelli who they’ll sign,” Lawton said. “They can’t move forward without reducing some salary. Now the battle is on. That’s the price of winning in the salary-cap world.”

Yeah blah blah on the title. What do you expect him to say about either team winning?  “Nah screw them they aren’t me so they can get bent.”  - This is why I’m not the GM.  Well.... this and a few other notable reasons, but ALSO this.

Around the NHL

Mann confirmed Dorion's comment last week that it will either be Quinton Byfield or Tim Stuetzle at No. 3 #Sens

— Bruce Garrioch (@SunGarrioch) September 29, 2020

Ottawa Senators Chief Amateur Scout Trent Mann: We’re not opposed to taking a goalie at any point if it’s the best thing for the organizationhttps://t.co/1yTatiqVBp

— TSN 1200 (@TSN1200) September 29, 2020

So if I’m tracking the rumors right, they take Byfield/Stutzle at 3 and Askarov at 5?  I suppose the play there is threaten to take the goalie unless they trade up and then just take whoever you want if they call bluff. I dunno. I hate having to worry this much about what Ottawa might do.

In WIIM Cup Predictions

I didn’t want to make this a standalone, but here are the results of the final predictions we made:

J.J. - 1.5 out of 3 (Had the Bolts over Vegas in 6)
Rob - 3 out of 3 (1 perfect)
Josh - 3 out of 3 (2 perfect)
Peter - 0 out of 3
Mike - 1 out of 3
Jamie - 0 out of 3
Prashanth - 2 out of 3

That’s a good job by Josh winning the final round off the perfect predictions. Overall, our champ is Mike though, who correctly predicted 14 out of 23 series.