News for July 6th, 2008

My favourite Owen Nolan memory

-Minnesota Wild sign free agents Owen Nolan, Barry Brust, and Jesse Schultz (Minnesota Star-Tribune I & II): Nolan signs for a surprising $5.5 million over two seasons.  This is a bit surprising as Nolan has been rumored to be re-signing in Calgary since late June.  Nolan will bring some size to the Wild's mostly tiny/not-physical top two lines.  Schultz is the cousin of Wild defender Nick Schultz.  At one point he was expected to step onto the Canucks top line alongside the Sedins but went out and had a terrible camp and never regained the confidence of the Canucks staff before being dispatched to Atlanta.  He has seasons of 66 and 67 points in the AHL, as well as topping 100 for Kelowna of the WHL, so it's clear he knows how to score, but has only got into 2 NHL games, thus far.  Brust was a draft pick of the Wild in 2002 but was never signed.  He spent a couple of seasons in the Los Angeles organization, even getting into 11 games with the Kings, before being signed by the Wild's minor league affiliate in Houston, and now with the Wild.  Brust gets a two-year deal while Schultz signs for one, financial terms for either deal were not disclosed.

Other

-Rotowire.com suggests that Mathieu Schneider might be on his way to Ottawa.

-The Insider on Pittsburgh Sports says that the Penguins are shopping Darryl Sydor for a late-round pick with former teammate Gary Roberts pushing his new team in Tampa Bay to acquire the defender.  Tampa Bay is also said to be interested in Rob Scuderi.

-The same article as the above also suggests that Pittsburgh may try its luck with some fringe players by signing them to two-way deals then giving them a shot to make the Penguins roster.  Names named include Brad Isbister, Jeff Hamilton, Jeff Taffe and Kris Beech, the latter two whom played for the Pens last year.

That's all I got for today, Sunday is traditionally a pretty slow news day (Though I do recall the Martin Havlat 3-way deal coming down on a Sunday several years back), but things should pick up a little bit this week.