[sureLoss]

some analysis on TJ Brodie's new contract

http://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/3...ud-defencemen/

other interesting tidbits:

5. Boston and Buffalo did talk quite seriously about Chris Stewart, but it doesn’t appear at this time to be a match. According to other teams, the Sabres want two young players (or a young player and a draft pick) for the winger and couldn’t reach an agreement with the Bruins. Buffalo won’t make the move early unless it gets what it wants.

6. Those same teams believe Buffalo’s asking price for Tyler Myers is so high because of a worry he’ll go to a better team and make them look silly for trading him.

13. It didn’t register much at the time, but Patrick Roy’s open disappointment during training camp with 2013 second-rounder Chris Bigras and 2014 top selection Conner Bleackley was foreshadowing. The Avalanche fired Rick Pracey last week, their director of amateur scouting, who pre-dated Roy. Tension began when Roy arrived, since Colorado didn’t have Nathan MacKinnon atop their 2013 draft list. Roy made it very clear MacKinnon would be the pick. Can’t argue with that on

15. MacKinnon beat three-time Olympic short-track speed-skating gold medallist Charles Hamelin in a quick race set up by CCM. How much burst does Colorado’s tremendous forward have? A company called PowerScout hockey is starting to track both top speed and acceleration through a computer program that uses three cameras set up around a rink.

16. The sample size is small (one-to-six times per player), but growing, and PowerScout (for business reasons) won’t allow its videos to be posted. The data I did see was compelling. MacKinnon was not one of the quickest accelerators (Alexander Ovechkin was first among those tracked, followed by Erik Karlsson, Ryan Kesler and Taylor Hall), but only Carl Hagelin had a faster highest speed, at slightly above 37 kilometres per hour. MacKinnon was tied for second, with Phil Kessel. (You can see some of that information here)

17. Not yet public is tracking indicating how much a player skates at a pace above 20 kilometres per hour. I saw a little bit of that information. Only three men stayed at that speed more than 40 percent of the time with at least 10 minutes of five-on-five play. They were Hagelin (44.2 per cent of 13:36), Sidney Crosby (42.4 of 19:19) and Joe Colborne (41.7 of 12:29)..