NHL Puck – Yashin, Sakic, Strome, and Stamkos

There is a lot of talk this off-season about surprise signings, prospects, and some shocking deals yet to be made. This past week have given us all of that and more and I’ll be discussing it today.

First I’ll start with  the guy who always seemed to come up clutch in his career, and obviously has continued that in retirement, we’re talking about former Avs captain, Joe Sakic.

If you haven’t heard the story yet, it’s a pretty good one. Sakic was playing the American Century Celebrity Golf Championship at Lake Tahoe this past Sunday and man, did he do something amazing.

With one drive with his 8-iron on the 162 yard, par-3. Sakic drilled the hole-in-one. Now getting a hole-in-one is a rarity on it’s own accord, but this one was special. It just so happened that the tournament sponsor awarded him $1 million for the shot.

Sakic will recieve $500,000 of that money, while other half will be given to the Lance Armstrong’s Livestrong Foundation for cancer research.

You can watch the video of Joe’s hole-in-one right here as well.

Moving from one former NHL All-Star to another, rumors are now swirling that former Ottawa Senator and New York Islander forward Alexei Yashin could be making a return to the NHL this season.

According to Dmitry Chesnokov’s twitter page, Yashin is already getting offers at least one NHL team. Many writers believe that it’s the New York Islanders who’s trying to pick up their former captain again, as they are already paying him for his buy-out. Why not bring him back so he can actually earn some of the money he’s making?

Some believe it could just be a negotiating tactic for him to land another job in the KHL. He’s become an unrestricted free agent when his former team, SKA, opted not to extend his contract, leaving him jobless thus far for next season.

As of now, it’s just pure speculation as we wont know anything more for a while. Yashin’s agent is being pretty hush about the ordeal and is quiet on what team is supposedly offering him a contract. So now it’s just a waiting game for us and Mr. Yashin.

As we enter mid-July, the temperature’s continue to climb. Mid-to-high 90’s all this week in St. Louis alone. Meanwhile, things are really heating up in  Tampa Bay. Fans continue to sweat it out as their offensive star, Steven Stamkos, remains in limbo contract wise for next season.

Many, myself included expected a contract to be completed by now and Stamkos would be a ‘Lightning for Life’ by now. Yet now there are whispers of a lesser (3-5) year deal potentially on the table and Stamkos could be trying for force Steve Yzerman’s hands.

As Yzerman has shown, he isn’t afraid of making the right move to improve his hockey club in his short career as the Lightning’s GM. Though it is HIGHLY unlikely to happen, trade rumors and some practical jokes have swirled in the world of hockey landing Stamkos in Toronto, Philadelphia and St. Louis.

I personally believe that Stamkos will be resigned, and he will be inked to a nice fat contract. We must remember, it’s mid-july. Hockey season doesn’t start until October folks. Yzerman & company have plenty of time to hammer out a deal and get Stamkos, along with his high octane offensive skills back in the Bay before the season begins.

A ‘Check This Out’ Moment

To close out here, I wanted to treat you all with this beauty of a goal scored by New York Islander prospect Ryan Strome in the Islander Blue vs White prospect camp. It was a shootout competition and man-oh-man did Strome impress with his display of finesse this past week.