travel_dude

But how does it taste? LOL Ontario has riches beyond belief when it comes to freshwater lakes and land. If it wasn't for The Hammer and the ugly exploitation of Niagara Falls, it would be almost perfect. Of course there is Toronto, hehe.

Just giving you some grief. Laugh it off. I would say a bum hip or two would impact a goalie or player in their ability to move their legs. No, it's not the same movements, but legs are legs.

Perhaps the effluent flowing into it at some point near UofA isn't a good thing either. Really, I am a bit of a water snob, where I don't want to smell sulphur in my drinking water. Where I was born and raised had the best water in the country for purity and (lack of) taste. Or so the ratings people would have you believe. That was then.

Wasn't Monahan broken with his hips both being messed up? LOL. There is a lot of risk asking a seldom used backup to get ready for a possible starter season. It's quite possible that they always envisioned him being the backup here. But I think about Gillies who was projected to be our top goalie prospect. Lasted 7 games then out for 6 months.

Who is discounting Wolf. He's not a AHL goalie. We have 3 of those. We have zero reason to ignore a goalie drafted by one of the teams best know for goaltending. For as good as Vladar was in one NHL season (.906 and 2.75), his career number are less promising. And his career high games played in a season is 27. Give him a chance? Sure. I thought he might be a capable BACKUP. How much before you decide he hasn't got starter in him and you have all hope put on the only other NHL goalie you have? On the other hand, you might have 3 and you suddenly have riches.

No to the 1st rounder, so it would need to be a combo to make it work for us. It's a suggestion not an absolute imperative. We don't need him per se. We could use a potential replacement if Vladar doesn't recover his form.

Obviously I am mixing up rivers, with this one starting in the Rockies. But yes, the treatment of the watershed area is important. When the chlorine taste is strong, then my opinion is that it's too treated to be good.

Askarov has AHL and KHL time in and the reasonable expectation is he is ready enough to play as a 2nd or 3rd string goalie in the NHL. I don't see any of the AHL goalies really ready to play NHL games. Not and expect anything great. Any deal for Askarov would need to include a NHL player as part of the package going. We knew trading Marky was going to be a hiue risk to the team. This is about managing that risk.

He can keep Connor Brown company on the "haven't scored a single goal yet" list. They can blame it on the water. The water sucks here, but it comes from a river, so what do you expect.

Having two NHL backup level (currently) goalies may not be the best way forward for us. Wolf or Vladar could absolutely become a starter this year if they play their heads off. Wolf has been a AHL starter. Vladar has played closer to NHL starter. Or there could be a 1a/1b mix here. The other option is to make a play for Askarov and run three goalies. 25-30 games each. Delays a decision on which to make starter, for now. We have a possible trade chip to move at TDL. Three goalies never seems to work out, though. May be a bad situation to get into here. Just an idea.

Even with moving Kane to LTIR, the projected return date is end of September, or at least I had seen that date bandied about. Ceci would be a necessary move regardless, would he not? I'm seeing different cap numbers for EDM even without the OS matching. -$2.3M in one case without the OS players and -$5.9M on another site with OS players signed.

Did I miss something? I didn't see anything about them matching both deals. Puck Pedia shows both deals included putting them $5.9M over the cap.

Ceci + 3rd rounder to SJS for Ty Emberson. In the space of a weekend they traded a 3rd, a 4th and Ceci for Pod and a replacement D. Sent out $3.1M for close to $1.95M coming back. I get the sense from these two trades that they are not matching either Broberg or Holloway. So, the trade tree is Bourgault (22nd overall) + Chaisson (116 overall) + Ceci + 3rd for Podkolzin + Emberson. Did I miss anything?

Ha ha. I think it was a mutual decision, but the official announcement was they were not extending his contract.

That sounds like a big underpay. But I suppose that MTL traded 31st and 37th for Alex Newhook, so maybe a similar idea. They threw in Gianni Fairbrother who is in the ECHL. Maybe the fair equivalent would be NJ 1st + a 2nd (COL from WAS) plus Kuznetsov (AHL). The trade tree would be cool: CGY sends Markstrom reduced salary (31,25% retained) + 2nd NJ send Mercer + Bahl It leaves us with our own 2025 1st. Not sure how I feel about losing the 2025 pick. Having 2 oicks is ideal. But the chances of getting a Mercer like player in a later round 1 pick are 50/50. The funny thing about trading NJ their own pick is that it's a lotto protected pick this year. We would be out a top 10 pick anyway (moved to 2026) or a pick between 11 and 32.

I was not aware of this. I thought they needed to have doc cleanance since it's insurance related.

We perhaps value our players lower than other teams do. There is a thing called desperate. And there is a thing called pro scouting that raises value. In both those trades, perhaps, the teams making the trades saw something we didn't or saw no viable alterative in the trade market. I don't think Coleman gets you Mercer. NJ knew his value, but that value was when he was younger. I would suspect that a trade for Mercer would include a prospect at least at the level of Coronato. Maybe the other pieces are something like a 2nd and 3rd. Coleman if they like. Maybe we take back a contract they want to dump. Tartar maybe, but they went out and got him, didn't they?

So, a 22 year old C that has already had two seasons over 20 goals is wrong because we might win games? And a couple of picks is too much to pay? I don't know we could match the level of prospects they offer but I would counter with Coronato and Pelletier perhaps. Bringing in Mercer would be more about the future than just winning games today. It's about building out the C position for years to come. I like Coronato and Pelletier, but if they result in a 22 year old C, then maybe it's the price to pay.

I have to ask. Is Broberg any better than Kylington? STL had the opportunity to sign him, but went in on the double OS. I get the age difference, but I think I would pick Kylington first due to his superior skating. A guy that scores a couple of goals for the Oilers does not seem to be anything special.

Oh, I get that. I was just saying that it shows that players value offers over supposed team loyalty some times. They were probably yelling "Start the car! Start the car!" when they got contacted. As an aside, EDM loses anything but a top 12 pick this season in round 1 and has no round 2 unless they accept the OS for Bro. If it happened to be a top 12 pick, they would send an unprotected 2026 first. But you probably don't want to talk about the player they got as a result.

Monahan walked in to MTL healthy, and played the first half of the season. What was it, a broken foot and he suffered a groin injury during rehab? Montreal lost out on trading him that season. Played the entire next season, split between MTL and WPG. Using LTIR to manage cap is a dangerous game. You can't hold back a player from being deemed healthy. And not every player that gets injured can use LTIR. If you are over the cap and have to use the LTIR to be compliant, you can't replace other players not on LTIR. Is the Kane surgery maybe a bit late? Sure, but he's gonna miss part of the season regardless. The player has a right to delay it because of their life outside hockey. They might want to get a 2nd opinion. The team has a responsibility to do what is best for the player. With Monahan in Calgary, they got the surgery over as soon as possible. Had he been deemed healthy sooner, we could have bought him out. That didn't happen even though it was in our best interests to do it over a trade.

I think we made two mistakes. One was not signing Gaudreau when he wanted to sign, before he started the "nesting" cycle. We wanted to pay less due to a down season, so it got put off and he wasn't talking during the season. The second was caving to Tkachuk with the high final year, instead of just hammering out a deal. If he was delaying, then we should have traded him then. If it was cap management, well that went out the window with the $9M actual final year. I only really blame BT for the Johnny Walkie. I would have been fine signing him long term. Get that done before the contract year and whatever you get, you get. Make moves to make it all work.

I'm assuming he can re-sign July 1/25. As a TDL trade, he may be worth quite a lot in March 2025. Rest of the year at a value against the cap. A final year at a very good value. Would have to be a team that can actually fit his cap in the last year.

It would have been a punitive move for us and the money would have been the same. For the price of a 2nd and 3rd, it's not a bad deal, if you can afford the salaries. I think a defense first team can turn them into decent players. Low risk, considering some of the crazy deals out there. Henrique is not worth what he got. And that was more value than a lot of deals.

I get that, but he also scores pretty key goals. I got the sense that TOR was not okay once he left. He kinda priced himself out there. They could not afford what he was being offered in FA. A Kadri type player; didn't score a ton but fans loved his attitude. He was more like secondary scoring in TOR than what he looks like in EDM. He found a niche there and he's making it work. TBH, most players without McD and Drai look average. Nuge is nothing without them. Douche-bomb would not be scoring as many goals or colecting as many PP points without playing on a stacked PP. Compare this past year where he played most on the top PP unit. 35 PP ponts, whereas last year he had 13. When you do a comp between Bouchard and Nurse, you wonder how Nurse ever got $9M+. It's like looking at Andersson vs Makar. Nurse's best season is no better than Bouchard's rookie season. Mind you, when you don't need to play defense, you get lots of points.