conundrumed

By the looks of it, they wanna stop being soft and lazy, finally.

Without question. Coleman's a terrific player. Helluva forechecker and boards player. $4.9 is what it is in the current market. We want to be harder to play, he certainly helps with that.

Definitely running out of real estate and most deals are short and affordable.:/

Wasn't he a C in NJ? I thought TBay moved him to wing for fit. Could be wrong...

An old Avs tweet.

All correct. One positive you missed is that he is completely magnetic with teammates and fans alike.

Lol. Surely you jest. He has Huberdeau on one side of him, at worst Owen Tippett on the other side, sound dmen and good goalie behind him... You're forgetting he doesn't play for the Flames anymore, he's skating with players that aren't stuck in mud and can easily keep up. It's an entirely different world. It isn't small sample size, it's what happens when a good player goes to a team that isn't deathly lazy.

What irritates me is that you have the middling guys like Kulak, Hathaway and Lomberg wanting raises that they've earned and BT, instead of running on the faith in the player, washes his hands of them. Add in waiving Byron, you just washed your hands of 3 guys that would be very useful today. So your stuck with a terrible bottom 6 of camp invites because you didn't see the need for effective bottom 6 guys in your system to give modest raises to. Playing hardball with your low paid guys is idiotic. They do their best and are dedicated to the jersey, you reward them with a slap in the face. Fla and MTL thank you for developing them. Now look at that mess of a bottom 6. It's terrible. Fix your mess, by not doing what you've been doing with lazy fixes. Camp invites terrify me because I know we'll need at least 2 non-NHLers. Never fails.

Good deal for the Cats.

I'm also ready to be underwhelmed. We've been all sorts of quiet so far.

I agree with your D picks. Nemeth's a good safe play at the right price. Montour is likely to get paid, great PP QB.

I'd be interested in guys like Coleman and Danault, just not a 5mil price tag for 3mil players.

When teams know it gets him off his game, they keep doing it. Double edged sword. He should know by now he has to play through it and stay focused on the task at hand. He tries to do too much alone when he’s pissed off.

My least fave part of his game is that he can’t contain his frustration. That’s why I vote no, and the only reason. The constant pissing and moaning, refs just tune that out.

Terry Doran is their scout here. From Sarnia and managed the Sting and asst on the Spits. He’s a good talent assessor(Zacha, Chychrun, Kyrou Sting picks). But most scouting this year was video review and some players didn’t play at all. There are so many unavoidable black holes in this draft that all teams really aren’t sure exactly what they have, or they’re kidding themselves. Kind of a bad year to draft when the OHL didn’t play.

How’s the whiskey?lol

I'm a little leery of the teams that have thin prospects at G(Buffalo, Calgary, Edmonton, NJ, Ottawa) didn't take one of the 2. Until of course Yzerman jumped up and said, okay Dallas, I need your pick. Detroit crushed the 1st round I thought. If you're building from the back out, seems like a good plan. Having a Seider-Edvinsson potential pairing for the future might be terrifying. Both 6'4". Both exceptional dmen. In Yzerman's interview, he brought up "just added 25yo Alex, so we can be patient with an 18yo goalie". Why do I feel like Lidstrom quietly scouts for him in Sweden? Our pick looks good, but a little leery he's going to Harvard. Not exactly the #1 school you leave early from. Can see a long wait. Let's get another RW with our 2nd.

I'd buck that to $1.7ish for 2. My basis for that is due to having an exceptional coach.In Suttter I trust. Back in my day, Coaches spit chew juice on you and smacked any player in the head for no reason, closest target. Most of them are now mgrs. Then there's Quenneville and Sutter. Exactly what this team needs.

Back to FA....will Galchenyuk be cheap?

Not UFA, but I'd be a fan of acquiring Dvorak. He'd give us options, and he's a smart player hiding in the turmoil that is Arizona. If not Chychrun.lol

I don't question Monahan at all, outside of health. He's a good 1C, his 2 way game improved with Sutter. When we were the comeback kids under Hartley, he was the guy scoring big goals.

I see a soft 3rd line and 2/3 on the 4th that are below average skaters. I don't question Mangia and Dube's compete levels, just everyone else's at fwd. But they are soft. Love Dube, he's so crafty. Mangia needs to be in the top 6 imho. Barring moves, there is room there.

We should have signed Hathaway too. Do you see what we've done alternatively? Sign camp invites and call them NHLers even though they're not. I think this is Sutter saying "you have to have a bottom 6 in this league to succeed". 4th line isn't a throwaway line for prospects and periphery players. It's where the muck is and if you can't match the other teams muck, you're gonna lose more than you win. 4th lines on contenders are filled with experienced NHLers that know that role. Can pk/shutdown effectively etc. Putting 8-10% of your cap into an effective 4th line is very important. It isn't a throwaway line like we've treated it. I'm really happy we got him, We need a few more players like him. Hats off to Lucic for his heart, but let's face it, I skate better than him and Ritchie. I'm glad Sutter's here, this roster is one soft mess. So while everyone wants the prized #1RW, I'm all for improving the bottom 6, and a solid backup goalie. Get a lot harder to play against, and Markstrom's amazing, get him a really good backup to support. I'd be fine with Rittich, for the record. The only problem I ever had with him was the team in front of him.

Ox had the best nickname. He thought Buster Hyman works, and I can't help but agree.lol

While I somewhat agree, Francis has to not just build an NHL team but an AHL/Prospect pool as well.