travel_dude

Him not signed yet means just that. Not signed yet. It's a binary thing. The biggest contracts don't get signed in a couple of weeks. Who knows what the state of negotiations really is. It's not negotiated in public. BT has his numbers and Gross does too. There is no real benefit to sign if you are still some distance apart or can't quite agree on some of the terms.

My issue with him this year is strictly cap. I think he needed a bit longer runway to recover but was hampered by another injury. DET would likely fit his needs to play nearer to family. Playing with youth would probably suit him especially if he got his shot back on track.

Oh, I get that. Hoping that ARI didn't realize that. LOL. If DET would do it, I would so Monahan plus a pick. Maybe not a 2nd since it's just one year.

The premise is that Chychrun is the same or better than Hanifin. Most of the trades include Monahan, which is a cap dump. In TMAC's proposal, we dump salary for a cost controlled player for 3 more years. AZ would be dumb to make that deal. Mine is less of a cap dump. It might be too soon to give up on Zary though. As an alternative, I would do Monahan + Hanifin + Dube to start. We can likely bring in an AHL player to offset Dube.

Weekes backs off from his initial "report". Now (reporting outside a men's room) he says coaching situation remains "fluid". Poor choice of words outside a men's room.

Okay, so I will say I like Nichuskin. If he gets to market, we should try to sign him. He's worth $6M in my opinion on the open market should he get there. Bit of a risk, but likely to produce as well as Mangiapane. And he's a LW. And it only makes sense to use him as a top 6 scorer. If we are trading Mangiapane, then we best get a top 6 C to have someone for Nich to play with. Backlund isn't the right fit. You may be able to go with Nich-C-Toffoli. 3rd line of Coleman-Backlund-Jarnkrok. 4th line of Pelletier-Rozie-Lewis. I would counter your offer for Chychrun by suggesting Hanifin, Dube and Zary. No thanks to Subban. He's not what he used to be. Manson would be more logical. I haven't done the cap math, but the implication is we have sent out close to $14M and taken back $4.5M for Chychrun. Lucic retires. Mangiapane out and a similar cost C coming back. $4.5M for Manson. $2M for Jarnkrok. $6M for Nich. $2M for Guddy and $2M for Kylington.

All I was pointing out was that the final two years of the KHL was quite similar in production. Panarin was a couple of years younger, but otherwise similar. Offering top 6 and PP is a bit of a stretch. Having a fellow Russian may help him adapt better.

I suppose we could take back Drouin and Hoffman to give them some room. But that maybe doesn't make sense to MTL. They can use Drouin, should he be on LTIR again. Here's one thing to consider about Tkachuk going to MTL. Can you imagine Tkachuk ever learning French? Not that you must, but I think he would have problems with the language laws there.

It's a lose-lose trade for MTL. They can't afford cap to pay Tkachuk. Fans would lose it over the summer. Media would burn down Bell Centre. But.... Fans would chant his name every time he was on the ice. They would scream at the refs every time he fell. As much as Tkachuk is a polarizing player and may be part of a huge trade, losing him changes our identity. As much as Sutter claims we don't have star power, we have 3 quasi-elite players. We were a top 10 scoring team in the league on the backs of 4 players.

The bolded is just an opinion. Big time UFA's don't go to loser teams that will never do anything. US players that only want to play in the US will only go to US teams. Apparently, every player born in Ontario wants to play for the Leafs. Every UFA wants to play with Connor. Forsberg won't sign in a small market because he played in a small market. Really, it comes down to competetive advantage and timing. A player may just pick the biggest deal he gets. Or he may look at the spot he would fit in. Or his wife says she won't play north of Calgary. Or the player has a young family and doesn't want his kids to grow up in a violent city. I agree that Flames without Gaudreau and no major improvement are not much of a playof team. The three teams listed are questionable if they will improve. Vegas is aging out of their window. WPG is starting to age out and has to fix the locker room. VAN is bad and seems to continue being bad. Pacific teams don't look like anyone is making improvements. EDM is in cap jail. SJS is just bad. ANA is trying to rebuild. SEA is Satoshi Nakamoto-attle. The Pacific could send only 3 teams to the playoffs again.

I thought he got a raw deal in EDM. Fans scapegoated him like Eberle and Hall and the list goes on. I give props to the kid for facing the racist taunts and posts. As a RD, we should look at him. But, he would be depth here. Would rather spend the money on Guddy, but having a 4th RD might be ok. Saying all that, we don't have the roster space unless we regress from last year.

Weekes broke the story. Funny how these guys get it so wrong. PD another victim of the Satoshi Nakamoto show called Vegas.

Panarin had similar stats his last year in the KHL. He's a buddy of Podzokin, so one of those guys will sit.

EDM was really big on him. They seemed to think he was going there because everyone wants to play with Connor.

Poirier and Kuz both looking good at the Memorial Cup. Kuz with a goal so far, and Poinier with 1 assist. Man, Poirier is really offensive. Not the bad way. Still only the 2nd and SJ up 3-1.

I think the chances of a rebuild are slim. Even if we have to, hard to do with the teams that have cap and the NTC's we have.

Yes, Cross reminded me of that.

Sutter needs to hire a new coach to replace Huska. Huska hired as head coach of the Blackhawks

Kuz scores the first goal of the Memorial Cup against Ham. Francis has an assist, though it looked like he touched it last. Francis, he who shall go back into the draft.

CHI hired Huska out from the Flames. Big loss.

I wonder if Tampa is just wasting 8 days.

Effectively, we have until July 7th on the floor to sign Gaudreau. Otherwise it's a rebuild. Mangiapane could replace some of the play on the top line, but we have no depth then. We might be able to sign Forsberg, but that's a big step down.

Yeah, forgot about that.

I would counter that we did go somewhere last season with him in the 2nd spot. Is he a top scoring 2C? No, but he is a very good 2 way C. Line numbering is really meaningless. It's minutes played. The problem was that we went with two shutdown lines instead of two scoring lines. Mangiapane still did extremely well. If, for instance, we have a playmaker to go with say Rozie and Toffoli, we suddenly have a scoring line? You might improve long term on Backlund by trading him and signing say Copp. That's also a function of getting younger. I would love to see Pelletier-Rozie-Toffoli. Could become a 15-17 minute line and score 20 each. There's a 2nd scoring line. The 4th line is still a work in progress. Lucic was okay, but it would be nice to have another Hathaway there, with a responsible C and another scoring winger.

I'm in that boat too. Landlocked, but in that boat. Wolf is very young by goalie standards. As good as he has been, he's not NHL ready IMHO. He might be the next Saros, but that guy was in his 2nd year when he got the call as a backup. 10-8-3 record. Not great. In an emergency situation, it might make sense to start him. Otherwise, let him dominate this year in the AHL. There's no shame in that and he will be close to the dev staff. Assuming that's a good thing.