Cup Finals and PHX Situation Continue

Yesterday's big day in hockey came and went and very little was resolved. Pittsburgh held firm on home ice ans will force a game seven in Detroit on Friday. While it appeared the Balsillie camp lost ground in the hearing in Phoenix, a ruling was not made. In the AHL, Manitoba forced the Hershey Bears back to the Western front for game six. Brent Sutter left the Devils but no word on where he is going other than "closer to home". Dany Heatley wants out of Ottawa to points unknown.

On to Game Seven...

For the first time in this playoff season, I actually predicted the winner and score when I tweeted "2-1 Pittsburgh in a thriller" yesterday afternoon. I was happy to see the series extended but I am now in a quandary because we will be out of pocket Friday night and will have to scramble to get to a television in order to see the cup raise.

The one thing I do feel certain about is that the Wings will complete my series prediction by winning in game seven. Jackson picked Pittsburgh in seven so we will have one correct prediction at POTG regardless of who wins.

On the Predator Front...

John Glennon has a story at the Tennessean about Alexander Radulov and Pred free agents that are on the fence for next year. Jason Arnot seemed to have softened his hard line on Rad's return, possibly because it would make Steve Sullivan's to the Preds more likely. The story also indicates that Zannon, Fiddler and Ward are not close in their numbers to what the Preds are willing to pay. Ward is really the primary surprise in that group.

The Milwaukee version of the Examiner takes a look at what next year's Admirals might look like. There is little new revealed but it does point to the fact that Drew MacIntyre will probably be headed to another organization to have a better shot at the NHL as a backup next year.

We offer Hockey Buzz's Preds writer Brandon Felder prayers as he heads out for an interview with an NHL team at points unknown. Check out HockeyBuzzRadio tonight for more clues and possibly an answer to the game we have been playing "Where's Brandon?" Pete Weber joins this week as co-host.

Dirk has a full slate of information at OnTheForecheck this morning. My bet is that he also was the winner in the above mentioned "Where's Brandon?" contest. I wonder if Brandon will get a couple of tickets to game seven if the Forechecker is correct.

Hearing in Phoenix...

After reading what seemed like a couple of hundred tweets during the hearing yesterday, it became obvious that Judge Redfield Baum is a very patient man. From what I could tell PSE's attorney was on his last nerve for most of the day.

It appears that Gary Bettman/the NHL was in the lead at the end of the day since the judge did acknowledge that relocation fees would be in order if the team were to move to Hamilton. The rumored amount of a fee would be in the $100-150 million range which would bring the total cost of a Hamilton franchise to $312-362 million which is in the ballpark of the estimated $300-400 million figure that Bill Walker of Make It Seven told me was "speculative" last week.

The Judge has suggested that al sides mediate the relocation fee which could cause the Balsille group to walk away from their offer.

Here are more stories from The Hamilton Spectator, The Toronto Star, and the National Post. The Arizona Republic continued with it's less than marginal coverage with this piece. They have provided some of the worst reporting imaginable on an issue critical to the taxpayers of Glendale. Heather at Save the Coyotes has a piece representing the fan's interest.

Here are the transcripts of the NHL's Bill Daly's post hearing presser.

We received an interesting email this morning that included this announcement from Make It Seven, "We want to keep the momentum going and give Canadians an opportunity to demonstrate their desire for a seventh team, so I am excited to announce that we have chosen June 19th as Make It Seven Day in Canada. This will be a day for Canadians to show their support in a variety of ways. Our corporate partners will be celebrating Make It Seven Day with us and you will be hearing more about that in the days to come." I didn't realize that big Jim he had the power to declare a "day". I seriously doubt that Balsillie realizes that day is already taken and is celebrated as "Juneteenth" which is a day set aside to commemorate Emancipation day and the end of slavery in the United States.

Around the Hockey World...

The the AHL playoffs, Manitoba extened the series and caused the teams to head back to the home of the Moose for game six on Friday night with a 3-2 win.

Ray Emory has agreed to a one-year contract with the Flyers.

Blueshirt Banter has an interesting article about the strength of different divisions in the NHL. To no one within the division, the Central was the toughest and appears set to continue in that direction for a few years to come.

At Inside Hockey, where we contribute, Jake Duhaime takes a look at how Twitter helped him follow all of yesterdays events simultaneously. Unfortunately, I spent most of my day atthe beach also glued to my Tweetdeck.

Another day, another mock draft, this one from Long Island.

Finally, here is an interesting post from View From My Seats on Gary Bettman with an in depth look that you don't see often past the normal cat calls that are mostly thrown at him.

More later...

Buddy Oakes for PredsOnTheGlass