Crystal Thoughts

2nd year for the Crystals

2007-10-09T13:18:00.000-07:00

After a disappointing 1st round playoff loss, the Crystals are back in action in RHL17. Here is a look at the 2nd year of Seattle Crystals hockey:

Forwards
Returning to the team are Saku Koivu, Mark Recchi and Dany Heatley. The big three will be expected to lead the team in offense. The rest of the offense is dramatically different. Brought in via free agency were Martin Gelinas, Steve Rucchin and Sergei Brylin. Earning a spot on the pro team were Ryan Kesler and Kyle Wellwood. This year's version of the Crystals will be hard-pressed to find goals after the big three.

Defence
The backend of the Crystals will remain largely unchanged. Joining Ruslan Salei, Jason Smith, and Alexander Khavanov will be FA acquisition Eric Weinrich. These four defencemen should hold the fort down to keep the Crystals in most games.

Goaltending
Curtis Joseph will be given every chance to prove that last season's results were an aberration. Tommy Salo has gone back to Sweden so Kevin Weekes is filling the backup shoes. Joseph will have to be on his game every night if the Crystals are going to make it back to the playoff rounds this season.

A two-game winning streak!

2006-10-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

With back-to-back wins of the Capones and the Selects, the Crystals are now 4-6-2 and solidly in the mix of things for a playoff spot. The Monarchs and Falcons also have 10 points in 12 games, while the Cougars are a little behind with only 5 points.

The latest game against the Selects was a great come-from-behind win. After spotting the Selects four goals, including a natural hat trick to Modin, the comeback began in the 2nd period. Three power play goals and great production from the #1 line of Recchi-Koivu-Heatley gave the team a 5-4 win. This followed on a 3-0 shutout of the Capones the night before.

After a night off, the Crystals will be at home to host the Reapers. The Reapers are currently the #1 team in the RHL so this will be an interesting test. After the Reapers, we will be taking on the Aviators who we're currently chasing for a bye playoff spot.

And another win

2006-10-17T01:15:00.000-07:00

With last night's 3-2 win over the Spartans, the Crystals earned their second win. We are now 2-5-2 and 5th in the Calder Division. More importantly, we're holding on to the last playoff spot in the Howe Conference.

I think the team is better than their record. We've scored 24 goals and allowed 25 so we should be closer to a 0.500 team. Unfortunately, one of those wins was the 7-2 drubbing of the Thundercats. If you remove that, then the Crystals record makes sense. So maybe I've built a 0.333 team when I was hoping to build a 0.450 team.

We just lost Khavanov for 9 days and our defence is pretty slim. I'm going to pick up a FA but there's not much there. We've got a game against the Penetrators tomorrow. Hopefully, we can play well against them.

And hopefully Recchi can start finding the net. His 4.5% SHPCT is killing me!

And we're off...

2006-09-28T23:34:00.000-07:00

The RHL16 season started last Saturday and the Seattle Crystals have a .500 record after three games. The team is striving for 60 points in its inaugural season and has 3 of them already. The season opened for the Crystals at home in the KeyArena. A good test for the Crystals was the Calgary Vampyres and the result was a 3-3 tie. The next night saw the team travel to Cleveland to take on their expansion brethren the Cleveland Falcons. The Falcons had previously defeated the Victoria Cougars 5-0 and defeated the Crystals 2-1. Finally, last night saw the Crystals' third game and it was an overwhelming 7-2 drubbing of the Waterloo Thundercats.

The Crystals are sitting in 2nd in the Art Ross division and 4th in the Richard conference. The season is early but it's always nice to get off to a good start. After a day off, they'll play two games at home. The first will be against the Edmonton Eagles and then against the Grand Prairie Stingers. These will be the first two division games for the Crystals and they will be important ones.

At this time, 4th line winger Stephane Veilleux is out and is expected back after the game against the Stingers.

Crystals ready for the season

2006-08-14T20:09:00.000-07:00

Although we had targetted Stephane Quintal and Richard Matvichuk as our last defenceman, their prices just got too high for our team.

A recent trade with the 500s brought Drake Berehowsky over to the Crystals. With the latest over-bid on Matvichuk by the Selects (who's spending money wildly again!), the Crystals can now say they're done with the auction and are ready for the regular season.

We have 14 forwards, 7 defencemen and 2 goalies signed for the upcoming season. The lines that the Crystals have been practicing with appear as follows:

Recchi - Koivu - Heatley
Letowski - V.Kozlov - Boguniecki
Kvasha - McLean - Kostopoulos
Chimera - Begin - Cowan

On defence, we have:

Salei - J.Smith
Khavanov - Berehowsky
Therien - Malik

#1 goalie is Curtis Joseph with Tommy Salo backing him up.

Bring on the exhibition season!!!

The look of the Crystals

2006-08-10T11:19:00.000-07:00

After a recent scouting trip to the Kootenays, the Crystals management is back and courting some free agents. It's time to provide some comments on the look of the Crystals after the drafts and leading up to the FA auction.

Dispersal Draft Results - Dany Heatley and Viktor Kozlov. Heatley was the young star forward that the Crystals were hoping for. He's currently going through some rehab but is expected to be the piece that the Crystals will build around. Kozlov was a nice surprise as I expected him to go earlier. He is currently pencilled in as the #2 center.

Expansion Draft Results - After the faux pas of drafting Cujo too early, the expansion draft went better than I expected. There was actually more talent than I thought there would be so I was able to build a fairly decent team. Saku Koivu was nabbed and will be the #1 center. Mark Recchi was also grabbed with the intent of meeting his demand. After some soul-searching (and some discussions with the Commissioner), we decided to let him test the FA waters. On defence, I'm pleased with Jason Smith as the backbone. Ruslan Salei was also picked up even though his salary was a bit high. All in all, I was very pleased with my team after the expansion draft was complete.

Trades - The first Crystal trade saw Chris Therien brought over from the Gargoyles for a 3rd round draft pick. With Therien, I am now satisfied with my defensive crew. I'll need a backup to deal with injuries but I won't spend a lot of money on him. Strangely enough, although I didn't plan it this way, every single defenceman I have can block shots, so we'll be the blocked shot kings of the RHL!

The next trade was a doozy. Although I had targeted Anze Kopitar with my pick, I realized that there are a number of decent picks and I didn't really need to be #2. So I put the draft pick on the market and got the best response from the Eagles. Through a day and a bit of negotiating, I was able to get fantastic value for my pick. Brett McLean will step right in to a Crystals uniform and will be our #3 center. He is expected to improve and develop into a very good forward. Along with him, Kyle Wellwood and Ryan Kesler will provide some good young forwards for years to come. Three very good prospects for one pick.

Entry Draft - After rating all of the 2005 NHL draft picks based on their skill level and their potential to make it to an NHL roster, I had a list of prospects with scores of 4-8 (except for Crosby who was a 10). I was pleasantly surprised that I was able to select prospects rated 6 or higher for all of my picks. I have no sure things like I might have had I kept my first round pick, but I am pleased with what I do have and will be following their career development closely.

FA Auction - We went into the auction targeting a backup goalie and appear to have one in Tommy Salo. He's not stellar and he's informed us that he'll only be with us for this coming season and then he's going back to Sweden. We also targeted Mark Recchi and hope that the bidding war between us and the Rovers is over. Finally, we needed a backup defenceman. There weren't too many of them so we targetted three defencemen who would step in and play. After the dust settled, Stephane Quintal looks to be the guy must likely to become a Crystal.

Future outlook...

It will be hard slogging with the division placement that the Crystals have. But I'm happy with my team and hope we can provide a challenge to our division rivals. Goals will be scarce this season but we have decent goaltending and it should be very hard to get shots through. I'm hoping for a 0.400 season which should enable us to build for RHL17 and beyond.

Expansion Draft through 4 rounds...

2006-07-23T14:14:00.000-07:00

Crystal Comments:

After a night's sleep, I now realize that my first pick of Curtis Joseph was probably a bad one. With all three other teams having a top-flight goalie, it was going to be hard for any of them to take a second one in Joseph. I could have let him sit for awhile.

Taking Saku Koivu and Jason Smith with the 3rd and 4th picks brought on some salary but give the Crystals a solid blueliner and hopefully will convince Dany Heatley that we mean business in our first year.

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Round 1
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Ward Chris Osgood (500)
Daniel Karlis Skrastins (FUN)
Doug Rick DiPietro (CAP)
Jean Curtis Joseph (SPA)

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Round 2
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Jean Oleg Kvasha (EAG)
Doug Chris Chelios (DEF)
Daniel Cale Hulse (ROA)
Ward Vladimir Malakhov (SOC)

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Round 3
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Ward Chris Gratton (DEF)
Daniel Radek Dvorak (GPS)
Doug Paul Kariya (ROA)
Jean Saku Koivu (SOC)

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Round 4
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Jean Jason Smith (VAM)
Doug Rob Niedermayer (MOU)
Daniel Boris Mironov (TME)
Ward Jason Cullimore (EAG)

The Expansion draft has begun...

2006-07-22T23:51:00.000-07:00

With the first pick earlier today, the Kansas City Monarchs began the RHL16 expansion draft. The first round is complete and 3 of the 4 picks were goalies. The Seattle Crystals have selected Curtis Joseph from the Spartans. Joseph is an Unrestricted FA but it is believed that the Crystals will be coming to an agreement with him on a new contract.

We've done some mock drafts and believe that we'll be able to field a fairly competitive team. I think there will be some surprises out of this draft. There are quite a few good players available and I suspect that they'll get taken even with their hefty price tags. I know that it was very hard figuring out whether to go all on the cheap or whether to go for quality. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the draft goes along.

In other notes, our second dispersal draft pick was Viktor Kozlov. I could not believe that he and Steve Yzerman dropped to the second round. When I saw the results of the first round, I was hoping that Daniel had left him off his list. But no such luck. Kozlov will be a decent 2nd line RW and he can also fill in at Centre.

Announcing Dany Heatley as the first Crystal

2006-07-12T19:52:00.000-07:00

With the sort-of-surprise pick of Martin Brodeur by the Cougars, the Seattle Crystals chose forward Dany Heatley as their young, budding superstar. "We hope to build around Heatley by providing him with a solid cast of players. We've already had discussions with Dany and his agent about contract extensions and what his expectations from the Crystals would be." Rumours have it that Heatley isn't that impressed that he'll be playing for an expansion team. After "serving his time" with the Wicked Ale, he had hoped to go to a more established team. It's unknown whether he'll be comfortable with the role of expansion team superstar or whether he'll be sitting out and demanding a trade to a better team.

Expansion Team Picks are set

2006-07-11T21:22:00.000-07:00

With the last few picks today, the expansion team picks are set. The Seattle Crystals managed to get the 2nd pick in the dispersal draft, 2nd pick in the entry draft, and 4th pick in the expansion draft. That fits what I wanted for the team as I don't expect there to be very much in the expansion draft, so the dispersal and entry draft picks are more valuable to me. Now to work on who to pick in the dispersal draft. I think Heatley and Getzlaf will be 1-2 in my list but nabbing Yzerman for his swan song is quite appealing. I hope that the draft gets started shortly as I'm on pins and needles to see who the first Crystal will be!

Starting the Crystal history

2006-07-10T22:24:00.000-07:00

With the RHL15 season complete, the four expansion teams started jockeying for draft positions. With three different drafts (dispersal, expansion, entry) and four positions, a "draft draft" was held. The Crystals received 3rd spot in a serpentine draft. The first two picks chose the 1st spot in the entry draft and the 1st spot in the dispersal draft. Given a lack of perceived talent in the expansion draft, we went for the 2nd spot in the dispersal draft. We will then choose the 2nd or 3rd spot in the entry draft and take whatever spot in the expansion draft is left for us.

Now to start planning on who to take in the dispersal draft....

Looking for the first Crystal

2006-05-23T20:44:00.000-07:00

With the recent announcement that the PUR will be dispersing, there are some interesting players available in the dispersal draft.

Yzerman C 4P/14 2900 1 92 40400 17:30 26/5 62/10/7/20 435 4220 0004 8 7 44 N $3,357,112
Heatley RW 3P/15 2338 12 103 00300 20:00 31/7 78/8/5/8 444 3320 0001 12 51 39 N $2,577,645
Getzlaf, Ryan 4J/13 547 $ 0,000

Steve Yzerman had a brief one-season run with the Wildcats and he has been one of my favorite players since his entry in 1984. I'd love to have him on the Crystals but that doesn't fit my #1 goal for the team - find a young budding superstar and build around him.

Dany Heatley has been great for the Wicked Ale and he fits the bill of a young budding superstar to build around. So I'm sure he'll be high on my dispersal draft list. I've been watching Ryan Getzlaf in the playoffs and he looks very good, so he'll be sure to make my list.

Not on the list above is Purge stalwart Martin Brodeur. Although he's a great goaltender to build around, I've had defensive teams before and I don't want that for the Crystals. Defensive hockey isn't what the Pacific Northwest want - firewagon hockey is the name of the game!

So, I see that there are three possible #1 dispersal draft picks. With four new expansion teams, that makes for some interesting jockeying in the draft position race. Given the interesting choice of players in the Pre-season draft (Sydney Crosby, Luc Bourdon, Andrew Cogliano), and what may be available in the expansion draft, some of the expansion teams strategies should be spent on which set of picks to choose.

Officially entering the RHL

2006-05-22T06:55:00.000-07:00

Today, the Seattle Crystals officially announced their entry into the Realistic Hockey League. They'll be starting up in RHL16. This will be a return to the RHL for owner/president Jean Duteau. The Crystals will be picking up players in the dispersal draft and expansion draft.

Seattle Crystals - a new hockey franchise???

2006-05-16T19:44:00.000-07:00

Late one night, I decided that I had been away from hockey for too long. Sure, it was fun helping out the RHL Gargoyles and dipping into alternate hockey with the FHL Flames. But I wanted to run my own franchise the way that I wanted to. Start from scratch and build up a winner.

After consulting with the family, I decided to jump in with both feet. My son Marc came up with the nickname - a name with a heritage even though he didn't know it - and we decided to locate the franchise in Seattle because it's one of my favorite American cities. And it doesn't have a pro hockey franchise.

So the Seattle Crystals have become a reality. But what league will we be a part of??

That's still to be decided, so stay tuned to this blog to see.