travel_dude

And simehow we couldn't get rid of Lucic for a cost similar without taxing your gradw 4 edumucation. Lucic could have bee traded to more than one team, and yes I know the NMC, but seriously? We gave up a 1st for a former scoring star.

I think it's what BT is offering, Connie perhaps uses his scouts to evaluate trade proposals. Nah, he hates BT. Left him with 1/2 a team.

You can offer sheet two players if they don't involve the same picks. They won't match Holloway if he signed. They would match Broburd. I'm not sure if Holloway is any improvement over Zary or Pospisil.

Regardless of what you call gaining cap space, the result is you can add players tat may be due a breakout but a team can't afford it now. We always missed out on deals that included taking on cap because we had to mostly do dollar for dollar. Connie managed to hit some line drives with getting back smaller contracts like Sharky. Anyway, if you have space to add a useful player in trade or you get one by taking a bit of a cap dump, so be it. We retained on Markstrom but could have done that at TDL. Maybe the deal really wasn't there, but we had the space to do it. If Marner was available (and it made sense), then taking the full salary without the team retaining might swing the trade to us. We can do it. I'm not talking about taking Kevin Hayes for a 6th. Kevin Hayes and Frost for a roster player is a different story.

COL and Tampa are the only teams that won the cup over the last 7 years that had an elite scorer on the team. TBL used the loopholes in exploting the LTIR rules, well legally that is. Most of the teams had scoring by committee. When your team struggles to score by any method including PP, you are in the middle at best. EDM will soon have $30M spent on 2 players. Does having two $14M (soon) okayers get you anything? My only point is that we will win the cup with a combo of drafted players, trades and signed players. No different than any team that has won. We may find another Gaudreau. We may have the next Kipper. Or McInnis.

I was going to respond but you are arguing two different things; career over or not over. Oh well, here goes. There was no ton of sense, just a bit of choice: - Monahan recovering from injury much quicker than previous hip surgery, resumed skaing in June - Gaudreau walked - Tkachuk traded long before Monahan traded - Almost a month before trade and Kadri signing in August Was it a solution? Yup. Only one or best one? MTL seemed to get several 1st rounders out of a zero cost trade. He was going to be a risk with his history, but it was one year.

Like it or not, BT made the deal long before the season started because he felt teams would penalize us for having a need to move a player. If that was the best he could do, then blech. If teams have similar players they need to move, then we should expect the same. Maybe not BT dumb but close. I'm not sumping on BT, just pointing out it was a costly move of a player with gas left. Teams will be looking to dump now and as we get close to the season. Just parking guys in the AHL using waivers isn't enough. Waiting for an arbitration award to open up the 2nd window won't be a wise strategy. Mostly because they will settle before the date and won't get the buyout option. Weaponized cap space shouldn't be a pea shooter. Full nuke option.

Prices go up when you get to October and teams stuck are likely to waive players that they need just to get there. It's one thing for a team very close, especially if they have RFA's that could be held off to sign. Not ideal, but an option.

Ugg, I hate the lack of Capfriendly. There are alternatives of course, but I hate change. I am okay withh change on the team but the NHL and other sites suck for change management. Here ya go is their motto. If I am the Flames, I am contacting teams close to the cap and seeing what they are offering. Mantha and Bean are closer to being rebuild stewards than longer term meaningful players. I don't mind the former and perhaps the latter gives us some options, but I think we need some middle term players that can help the kids now and maybe be the longer term vets to straddle the next wave. Necas may be out of reach, but there are others a bit older that won't cost a ton. Nothing in FA really works, other than Kylington. I fear that pride and bad advice will close that door.

Can afford, but they have 3 RFA's of which 2 have arbitration rights. Necas is likely to get $5+ if not higher on a shortie. Jarvis has no rights so they can bridge him. Drury is not that good yet, but he will get something. And they still need a 7th D. They seem to be a little interested in trading Necas, since he's not being used as a C. It might not be a cheap add, but it depends on how they view any prospect or roster player. With NJ, they have little cap space to sign Mercer long term. They don't need to right now, but their long term cap has issues. Odd that they signed any vets, but they look to want to go deep in the playoffs.

IMHO, trading Weegar or Andersson for anything less than what we unloaded Lindholm for would be outright robbery. I'm not hung up on Ras, but a cost controlled RHS RD is worth his weight in gold. Especialily one that can score when he actually shoots but gets a lot of points in spite of himself. Weegar was solid and got lots of points with barely any PP time on a PP that could barely get quality shots. You won't see any of the D traded until their contract year, assuming we don't re-sign Ras before. Kylington is still an option, and he may drop his price since teams are now looking for bargains. We can still give him our last offer. I would be first looking at what cap teams are offering to tale a crap contract. Or a player that had priced himself out of a team as a RFA. Teams that get stuck with an arbitration award still can use a buyout, but that's not exactly good business. And the player gets a term that doesn't help. Make a decent offer for that player in trade. Doubt the team gives up, but who knows. And we are running out of pieces to trade. Coronato + for Mercer or Necas might work. I think Coronato has a decent ceiling, but I don't think he will be a game changer.

I thought it was Foegele. The actual player they got is even less known. Like who? Bear was traded for Foegele. And EDM was glowing about the player, until they decided they couldn't sign him.

The only chatter I heard about Ras was that a few teams were calling but same chatter suggested ut would need to be a showstopper return. Getting back a 1st is fine, but we are likely only giving up the FLA pick this year, so the pick is not our pick. And if it was MTL's own, they would try to protect it. Sorry. Kappo has been on the move since before TDL. I don't know he's any more than a middle 6. DO we have enough of them? I didn't really notice him in the few games of playoffs I saw.

I've seen more references to the original quote than the actual one. It's like that line "do that voodoo that you do, so well". I thought it was Bill Murray but he was just paying homage to Blazing Saddles. That was a movie they won't show today!

As the saying goes, that'll do pig.

It's more appropriate to compare Stromgren to Stanky, but even that is a bit flawed. A high flying F that got opportunity to play in the NHL vs a guy adjusting to NA. And was not the offense first kind.

I like to hear takes on our AHL guys. When you only see points, you don't get a good read on the player. You may worry about a guy that isn't scoring before he gets to the NHL. But if the rest of the game is solid and it's a skill that is sometimes neglected in favor of goals, then it's a good sign.

Not that I really care if he gets 100 or not. I am more concerned that he doesn't stagnate after a breaktrhough season.

There is still a chance for Pelletier, but I think he missed his invite last season. That injury derailed him. Could possibly have made the team out of camp. But anyway, the problem is now other are ahead of him in both NHL experience and fit. He may have to find his way in through 4th line duty or by injury call up. The latter rareky works out, since they tend to move up the 4th liner and whoever is already on the roster as as 13th or 14th player. Anyway, I never actually watch any games but regularly checked blogs and scores. Morton seemed to find his way into both. Strom also started making an impact.

By contrast FLA did almost enough wrong to lose the cup. How to take a 3-0 series lead and let it come down to one goal. Can't fault the coach. He never worried about it in game, but saw crap in front of him way too often. FLA relied on a goalie prone to having down nights. He was the best Panther on the ice more than one night. I will let the fans use the injury crutch if they want. McD and Drai only looked good in a few games against FLA. And that was combined. I can't say that running up a score is an indicator of overall play. CMD's goals were all very nice. Two series they barely got to game 7; one was because they sat the star goalie. The city went from a big sustained roar to a fart in church. Koodos for not rioting. Not a lot of whining afterwards.

We get too hung up on words. I admit rebuild sounds depressing, but only because we were closer to being a playoff team than a cellar dweller. I don't even care what you call it now. Rebuild retool replacement.... I like to think we are changing the direction of the team because perennial non-contender was a drag. It caused some overthinking by the GM. Waste assets. I like where we are. Not close to a cup, but not too far from where we will pass a few teams and have a 1/16 shot. You have to fail to see where you are. We kept failing but never figured it out. And spent to the cap to think we were close.

Well, let's see how the draft eligible guys do this year. It's not too early to start watching them, but if the last view was a tourney, I would be suspect of any ranking. And maybe we also see how our guys progress. I don't like drafting by position, but if we have guys flooding the AHL with awesome seasons, we may have to focus elsewhere.

Even if we had of had a pick MTL could have taken in 2024, they would not have, knowing the pending sell off. Like you I think I know what it is then have to go back. I will be glad to get it over with and not have our picks involved any more. Conditions coming back? So be it. We will gladly take Vegas next year. They are like we used to be; strong one year weak the next.

Would have like to see his progression the end of last season when we were just filling out the roster. I didn't think Schwindt was that ready, so we barely got to see him. Klapka probably earned it, but like I said it would have been interesting if we could have brought up Strom. I didn't see any Wranglers games so I can only go by blogs or opinions here. If he is ready, then it's likely 4th line battling for more minutes.

I'm still cringing at the conditions on the Monahan trade. We have to hope this year that FLA is at least outside the top 10 pick. With that it doesn't matter if we are 10th or 1st. We just lose the FLA pick. I'm okay with that. Where it gets into migraine territory is both teams missing and FLA's pick being a lotto pick. Yikes. Connie, on the other hand, has conditions on the other team's picks. We lost three conditional picks or upgrades because of the playoffs, but whatever. The Vegas pick may have actually been the best result because it was this year. We did well. We have tons of cap and I am somewhat loathe to take a crap contract for just a pick. I would prefer that if we do it at all, we take a prospects or a young player as part of the package. We give back a late pick or future considerations. I doubt you see a Monahan level trade getting us a 1st. But we can easily do that if it's available. I am not as concerned with battling for a playoff spot as playing well in games. Want to see the effort more than the results. Get the prospects going. Win some lose some. If, by some miracle we end up in the playoffs, then MTL gets a lousy first. Ideally, we end up in 9th or worse. I only want us to win BOA games no matter what part of the season we are in. I don't care about being the spoiler, except to the Oilers or teams we have pending picks coming to us and that somehow makes the picks better.