HOLTY’S BLOG: HOT TAKES

/in , /by

The calendar has flipped to June meaning that by the end of this month all of these things will be accomplished: a Stanley Cup awarded, Vegas expansion draft, NHL Draft, AHL League Meetings, a few trips down the water slide, a few rounds of golf, a flight to Boston, and oh did I mention the water slides?

You may prefer the lazy river and that’s fine, but as I’ll remind you, it’s my blog and I’ll do what I want.

Now for the blog…

– Honestly no opinion either way on who wins the Stanley Cup, but it was pretty amazing to me to see how many people on Twitter had hot takes last night basically saying the series was over before it even got to Nashville. All of a sudden, Pekka Rinne is the worst goaltender to ever play the position, and Nashville shouldn’t have even made the playoffs. Come in off the ledge on the hot takes. A wise man once said it isn’t a series until the home team loses.

– The thought of having a dead catfish strapped to my body for a few hours grossed me out, so I figured you, fellow friends of the blog, should have to think about that too. Plus, we’ve already received enough letters from PETA in our 19 years.

– Wait, what about the water slides? That’s where the AHL’s Annual Marketing & Sales Meetings will take place. Well not on the water slides, but at that hotel. Its location will remain a secret for now, because I’m not sure if I’m allowed to reveal it, but let’s just say it’ll be hot there and water slides will be necessary.

– I’m all for reviewing calls to make sure they’re correct. I don’t think it will ever be a perfect process. That said, if a call on the ice is to be overturned, it HAS to be 100% conclusive. As in, everyone agrees. I just don’t see how that could have happened based off the reviews from Game 1’s disallowed opening goal.

– Doc and Pierre going to Primanti’s in Pittsburgh and Doc calling the play-by-play of the sandwich making is pretty funny. Primanti’s sandwiches are phenomenal and I’m not even a coleslaw guy.

– Like House of Cards? Season 5 is streaming now and Episode 4 has a familiar flair to it.

– Player profile this week on Nick Ellis. I expect him to take an even greater step forward next season off a very good rookie season. As it stands now, there figures to be at least three rookies on the blue line in front of him. But again, we’re still very early in the offseason and there are still roughly 10-12 NHL contracts at least yet to be added for next season in the organization.

– Holty tell me more about this contract situation. Fine. Based off CapFriendly, a very good site, the Oilers have 32 players under contract for next season. That doesn’t include restricted free agents (ex: Leon Draisaitl) and unrestricted free agents (ex: Kris Russell). So technically there are 18 possible NHL contracts still out there for the Oilers. They won’t necessarily sign 18, but safe to say that a half dozen of those contracts will end up in Bakersfield based off the Condors current numbers.

– That seems like a lot of turnover yeah? It will be. Especially up front. Last season, there was an extensive pool of returning forwards. This summer, conservatively. there is probably a whole line of forwards still to be signed since there are zero forward draft picks en route to Bakersfield. All of these signings will occur after July 1 when free agency opens.

– How about this story in the New York Times from Monday on Nello Ferrara, who got his first try-out in Bakersfield, and according to Marty Raymond, used to send a shipment of his candy fortune to the team often.

– Lock of the week? The NCAA College Baseball World Series runs on for way too long, but hey Holy Cross is in it for a weekend so you have my attention. The Crusaders are +10000 (100/1 in layman’s terms) to win their four-team regional against the top team in the country. It’s baseball. Anything can happen. That said, Florida State is +1600 (16/1) to win it all for the first time ever. I’ll take them.

Until next time Condorstown…

Ryan Holt aka Holty is the Voice of the Condors and enters his 7th season in Condorstown. He’s more a chips and chocolate guy than candy, but Swedish Fish is probably his favorite non-chocolate “candy.” Follow him on Twitter @CondorsHolty for more nonsense or shoot him an e-mail to RHolt@bakersfieldcondors.com with questions, comments, or blog ideas.