Back in the days I was a hockey beat writer for this paper, Craig Heisinger — who was the Manitoba Moose GM at the time and has since added assistant GM of the Winnipeg Jets to his job title — explained to me his philosophy on building a hockey team.
“You build up the middle,” he explained. “Centre, goalie and defencemen.”
I was reminded of that conversation this week when the Nashville Predators announced the signing of defenceman Ryan Ellis to an eight-year contract extension worth $50 million.
The extension won’t kick in until the 2019-20 season, but when it does and his $6.