| HeraldNet - Snohomish County's online news source |
 FRIDAY, JULY 25, 2008 5:58 am |
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| RECENT POSTS: | |
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• Reader question of the week July 16 • Catching up with Mitch Love July 11 • Tips sign Van de Velde July 10 • Everett passes on import draft June 26 |
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| Archives: | |
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| LINKS: | |
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• Alan Caldwell (The definitive WHL blog) • Andy Kemper (Portland Winter Hawks) • Gregg Drinnan (Kamloops Daily News) • Jessica Brown (Spokane Spokesman-Review) • Marc Weber (Vancouver Province - Chilliwack) • Regan Bartel (Kelowna Rockets) • Steve Ewen (Vancouver Province - Vancouver) |
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| RELATED ARTICLES: | |
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• NHL NOTEBOOK July 25 • NHL NOTEBOOK July 18 • Wrigley Field to host NHL's 2nd Winter Classic July 16 • Nolan out as Islanders' coach July 14 • Local kids learning tough love at 'Camp Love' July 13 • Lecavalier signs 11-year, $85 million extension with Lightning July 13 • NHL notes: Wild trade defenseman Bello to Canadiens July 12 • Frogs, M's and other assorted musings July 9 • Hockey raffle out $14,000 July 9 • NHL notes: Flames sign free-agent Bertuzzi July 8 |
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Reader question of the week Alan Caldwell (see link at left) recently delved into the overage situation for every team heading into training camp. He gives a good picture of what sort of decisions every team will be faced with. Everett finds itself in a different situation from last summer. The only presumptive Tip overage candidates for next season are defensemen Taylor Ellington and Graham Potuer, meaning Everett likely will be an overage buyer this year rather than an overage seller. Assuming Ellington and Potuer do take up two of the three overage slots, I'm interested to know -- should anyone out there be dropping in during the offseason -- what you think the Tips should do to fill the third slot. Who would you trade for and what would you be willing to give up? Feel free to include rationale on whether you think the Tips should try to win anything this season, or whether you think they should be focusing on the future and not trading away anything of value for a one-year player. I'll get the ball rolling. The northwest tends to be pretty fickle when it comes to sports fandom, so there's the risk of losing your fanbase if you sacrifice a whole season, so I'd go for a significant acquisition. I'd probably start by calling up old trading partner Swift Current to see who among their forwards (Zack Smith, Keegan Dansereau, Dale Weise) is available. Everett lost a lot of offense from last season and could use someone to pick up the slack. I suspect it would take at least a third rounder to pry one of them loose, perhaps more. But if a team is willing to trade a third rounder to move up four spots in the second round of the bantam draft, it should be willing to at least match that for a proven player. What do you think? ... [Read More] E-mail | Print | Comment NEW!
Catching up with Mitch Love For those of you who may be unaware, former Tips captain Mitch Love now makes his offseason home in Everett. This summer, in addition to training for the upcoming season, he's conducting a youth hockey conditioning camp at Everett Sports Performance Center. I checked it out this week and there will be a story about it in Sunday's paper (barring disaster), so check it out then. As for Love himself, he's currently in hockey limbo. He spent the past three seasons playing for the Colorado Avalanche's AHL affiliate (jumping from Lowell to Albany to Lake Erie), but was not offered another contract by Colorado, making him a free agent. So he's looking for a new team and hopes to know his fate by the end of the month. ... [Read More] E-mail | Print | Comment NEW!
Tips sign Van de Velde Just got word that the Tips have inked playmaking center Paul Van de Velde to an education contract. The 1990-born Van de Velde was originally a third-round pick in the 2005 bantam draft by the Kamloops Blazers. Playing junior A last season for Waywayseecappo of the MJHL, the 5-foot-11, 170-pounder had 10 goals and 13 assists in 19 regular season games and two goals and six assists in seven playoff games. He also played for Manitoba at the 2007 Canada Winter Games, which took the place of the U-17 World Hockey Challenge that year. According to the Tips Van de Velde had been headed to the NCAA prior to signing. However, he did attend Kamloops' training camp last fall. The Kamloops Daily News reported that Van de Velde had a poor camp and that he asked for "guarantees that the team wasn’t prepared to grant him." As a result the team and player ultimately parted ways, with Everett listing him. Well, it's hard to say how much Van de Velde will help the Tips. He's a center, which the Tips need; he's a left-handed shot, which is in short supply among the veteran forwards; and he's supposed to be a pretty skilled guy, which the Tips can really use given who won't be back next season. But as to how a point-a-game scorer in the MJHL at 17 translates into the WHL at 18, I really can't answer that. I've seen junior A scorers come to the WHL and become stars (e.g. Mark Santorelli), and I've seen junior A scorers come to Everett and flounder (e.g. Brandon Campos). And the MJHL is not considered as strong a league as the BCHL (where both Santorelli and Campos came from). But Van de Velde will add depth, he gives Everett another player who can help the Tips from getting too reliant on 16- and 17-year-olds in the upcoming season, and the fact that Everett signed him is an indication GM Doug Soetaert believes he's ready to contribute now. And in the best-case scenario (for the Tips) he'll be Everett's scoring overager in two years. --- Quick update: I've fixed the spelling of Van de Velde's name to correspond with the Tips' press release. Also, the press release's statistics for Van de Velde are different from what I found on the MJHL Web site, in case you were wondering about the discrepancy. ... [Read More] E-mail | Print | Comment NEW!
Everett passes on import draft As expected, the Tips did not select a player in today's CHL import draft. Everett indicated its intentions earlier in the offseason when the Tips traded their first-round pick to Regina in exchange for Regina's first-rounder in 2009. Everett also already has two Europeans on its roster in Russiann center Vitaly Karamnov and Slovakian left wing Lukas Vartovnik. So Karamnov and Vartovnik appear set to be Everett's Euros next season. There are two ways of looking at this. On one hand they're very safe Euros. The Tips know they're going to report, the two have already adjusted to both North America and Everett (and seem to get along with their teammates), and the Tips know what they're getting with both of them. On the other hand, neither has yet shown the ability to be an impact offensive player, and the Tips are going to need impact offensive players next season with the loss of Zach Hamll and Dan Gendur. The import draft is one of the few ways of acquiring instant-impact players at no cost, but decided to pass. Of course, there's a belief in the organization that Karamnov in particular is ready for a breakout. Nikita Filatov, the sixth-overall pick in this year's NHL draft, was the No. 1 selection by the OHL's Sudbury Wolves. The Portland Winter Hawks, holders of the top pick by a WHL team, took Russiam right wing Maxim Trunev. ... [Read More] E-mail | Print | Comment NEW! |
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