Looking Back To Look Ahead

It's housekeeping time here at TOFTT. I have a few items to discuss as I ramp up for what I hope will be a busy, entertaining, and insightful off-season. First of all, I published my last article for RotoTimes.com, which you can read here, this week. My contract is now at an end for them, but hopefully I'll be able to work something out so that I can continue writing for them in the future. I think it was a nice exercise for me to have a format and deadlines and I would like the chance to take it to another level in 2008-09.

Now, let's talk about what you can expect to see here in the coming weeks. First up, I will be doing a free agency preview for each division, starting tomorrow with the Pacific. My plan is to do one division per day on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of this week and next. I am going to start with the Pacific Division tomorrow and then work east until I wrap it all up with the Atlantic Division next Thursday. I will also more than likely mix in some other free agency commentary between now and July 1st.

Beyond that, I have other irons in the fire for the summer months. I will be doing another Salary Cap Challenge as well as another Prediction Panel. As before I will be enlisting the help of some of the blogosphere's best and brightest to participate in those posts. I also want to continue my analysis using Offensive Involvement Percentage (OI%) to break down the true top scorers of the NHL's past. My tentative plan with that is to break down the scoring leaders in each season by decade and see how they stack up. I will most likely tackle one decade per week (starting with the 1940's) and then keep a running list of the top 10 OI%'s in modern NHL history. So that is what I have planned so far. I will also be working on The Flower Shop so be sure to check in there as well. As always I'm open to feedback and ideas, so if you have any thoughts on where I should take this site during the harsh months of summer please by all means shoot me an e-mail.

Finally, I have a little gift out there for all hockey fans, but Penguins fans in particular. You can say what you will about the NHL, but in my opinion they are by far the best major sports league when it comes to using the internet to make their game more accessible to fans. With that in mind, I give you the classic Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Finals. Just in case you have 3 hours to kill.