Quick Strikes for Thursday, July 2

If you missed out on the festivities of Day 1 of NHL free agency, here you go – the official tracker. [NHL.com]
And here’s the Syracuse Crunch free agent tracker as well, as maintained by Allokago. [Chairman How’s Glorious Army]
The Crunch have parted ways with fan favorite Eric Neilson. He believes that he can help another team, but wherever he goes, he will be loved there as much as in Syracuse. You can listen to him talk about it HERE. [Syracuse.com]
USA Hockey has announced the dates for their annual pond hockey tournament in Minnesota. Here’s your chance to form up a team and go play outside. No, really – I’m totally serious here. [USA Hockey]
It’s official: Jack Eichel is the first player from his draft class to sign an NHL deal. He happily joined the Buffalo Sabres yesterday. Well, that took all of five days. [NHL.com]
Former Tampa Bay Lightning player, Brad Richards, signed a one-year deal with the Detroit Red Wings. All anyone really seemed to care about on Twitter was what number he’d be wearing. He can’t wear #19 because of Steve Yzerman, and he can’t wear #91 because of Sergei Fedorov. What’s a guy gonna do? [Winging It In Mowtown]
Contrary to some juicy rumors going around the other day, the Arizona Coyotes will not be relocating to Las Vegas. Are you kidding? Why would the NHL turn away from that $500 million expansion fee? [Arizona Republic]
If you were on Twitter yesterday, you saw the never ending discussion about Phil Kessel being traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Much of that talk focused on whether he’d play with Evgeni Malkin and/or Sidney Crosby. But the Pens’ salary cap was mentioned as well. [Pensburgh]
If you’re into fun and happy graphics, someone came up with NHL arena logos. Why? I have no idea. But, hey, you can waste some time checking them out, all the same. [imgur]
There are rumors that former Los Angeles Kings forward Mike Richards had his contract terminated due to substance abuse problems. Chemmy talks about the issues with drug and alcohol abuse and how the NHL deals with it, or turns a blind eye. [Pension Plan Puppets]
Unrestricted free agent Rich Clune has fought those substance abuse battles, and has lived to come out the other side clean and sober. Here is his firsthand account about his struggles with alcohol while playing in the NHL. It takes a brave man to make himself vulnerable like this. [The Players’ Tribune]

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