Cloutier re-signs and Cujo predicts

Los Angeles

The Los Angeles Kings have agreed on a 2 year contract extension with Dan Cloutier worth $6.2 million. The Kings obviously feel that Cloutier still has some good years left in him and can be an elite goalie for a team that has certainly lacked such a luxury since the days of Rogie Vachon (Hrudey wasn’t THAT great).

Nasvhille

GM David Polie has come out and said that he feels his Nashville Predators are Stanley Cup favorites. A case can definitely be made for such a claim and if Tomas Vokoun had been able to play during the Preds first round series against San Jose last year, things might have ended up a bit more different in the West. But with so many teams making improvements (Minnesota, who was horrible last season, is most notable) it’s going to be a dog fight for those bottom 4 playoff seeds. However, if the Preds can stay strong and the Red Wings get hit by a bit of an injury bug theres no reason as to why the Predators couldn’t just go ahead and win the division.

Phoenix

Curtis Joseph has also been tooting his teams improvement down in Arizona as the Coyotes have added Jeremy Roenick, Ed Jovanovksi, Owen Nolan and Nick Boynton. Those are some big names who will have to gel well enough to make this group of players playoff contenders after having a great, young core of talent for a number of years now in Shane Doan, Ladislav Nagy and Mike Comrie.

“Oh absolutely, the expectations are higher….anything short of making the playoffs would be deemed a failure – even though it’s extremely competitive to make the playoffs. But certainly we feel that’s in our future, that’s the feeling in the locker-room, that once we get in maybe we can make some noise.”