travel_dude

Stage 4 complete. Nice deflection Toffee.

Stage 3 complete. Begin Stage 4.

Oh. I can see adding Ritchie due to his fighting skills. Good extra to have. Richardson is all Sutter. BT understands you need depth at C, but couldn't afford a younger/better one. Sutter like N/S players that push hard.

I don't complain about Lewis. We were on a 10 games winning streak and neither Richardson nor Ritchie had anything to do with it.

Other than one real shift, the Wild have not looked good. Talbot is keeping them in it. The one goal scored was the usual story of a puck shot weakly off an opposing player. Generates the rush going the other way. Because the F are in deep, there was little available to cover the Wild.

The 4th line is useless most shifts. I have some time for Lewis, but apart from the odd good play, Richardson does not a lot. Playoffs, good to have him.

Stage 1 complete. Check. Stage 2 complete. Begin Stage 3.

Lucic's contract is bulletproof. If you buy it out, we are still stuck with about $4.6m cap hit. EDM gets stuck with $660k this year as well. Next year it isn't as bad. The thing about Lucic is his signing bonus is due in July. His actual salary next season is $1m. It's a great deal for a cap floor team. If Lucic wouldn't mind a year in Arizona.

Yeaaaah RD. Glad you are keeping the streak going. MVP of the Threads. I was going to message you to see if you were going to do one today, but figured if you didn't go on the board, you wouldn't respond to it. Minny is turning into a heated rivalry. Last game we had scrums after every whistle. A fight after the Kylington hit. Previous games had Gio kneeing a player. Backlund hit in the head by Dumba with 30 seconds left. Next game Tkachuk fights Dumba first shift. Dumba misses a lot of time after the fight. That's not even counting Staal's hack that broke Johnny.

Well, according to him and Sutter, he was not concussed. The NHL has a protocol, and you don't just get to say this, they have to conduct tests if it's a remote possibility.

Anyone have an idea if Kylington is playing tonight. He participated in full practice yesterday. When asked by reporters about the incident, he replied he hoped to be back playing soon. No update as to whether he's starting or not.

He's just a little guy. Since they like small players, perhaps we can trade Phillips to EDMM. Phillips was as productive in the WHL and more so in the AHL. Just can't get a break in the NHL. Helps I guess if your depth sucks. Oilers are on the playoff bubble right now, with Dallas ahead of them by virtue of playing one less game (EDM holds the tiebreaker for RW's). ANA and VAN are 2 and 3 points back, but both have played 2 more games.

Ryan Pike@RyanNPike · 1h Now official, #Flames have signed F Rory Kerins to three-year ELC that begins in 2022-23.

While I understand that one of Lucic, Monahan or Backlund probably has to sacrificed to pay Johnny/Matty/Andy/Shilly, only Lucic occupies a position that is somewhat redundant. Dube has yet to solidify himself as a C. Monahan is the 3rd best C overall. Ruzie may be able to jump up to fill a void, but not ideal. Not quite yet. That isn't improving the team, that is treading water with a weight belt. Some decisions have to be made. Do we sacrifice Monahan or Backlund to maintain the rest of the team. Do we use Dube and Backlund (or Monahan) to bring in a cheaper 2C and fill the other void with Pelletier. Do we send Lucic to another team after paying his SB? Cap savings for us and he makes $1m actual elsewhere. Can we afford Guddy and Valimaki. Thanks there Conumdrumed for giving us all headaches about the cap when we are in the middle of going for it. 😅

KJeith is supposedly back tonight. But Yamamoto is out with a sore foot. Blocked a shot against the Cats IIRC.

Just signed his ELC with the Flames.

I think it will come down to some kind of bridge deal, much like we did with Brodie. Not because I want that, but because that's what we can afford. I don't know that we need to see more of Kylington to know what he is. The questions about his game have pretty much been removed. Overall, I think he plays pretty much the same game as his other seasons. The difference is that he's cleaned up the bad stuff. Just my opinion, but I think he improves on offense in the future.

I am hoping that Guddy is back, but like you I hope it's in the $2m range. Don't know if that's reasonable or not. His career had gone sideways before coming here. He's 30, so not young. Zaddy is okay, and has looked better over the course of the season. Wasn't worth his salary to start. Still young but I don't know any way we can afford him. $2m is about all we could afford. And that's stretching it with Valimaki needing waivers.

It's really the only leverage he has. Just to force the issue more than anything else. I would prefer to have him locked in for a longer term, but that is just for known cap reasons. I think 3 years buys one year of UFA, so I don't know that is anty real benefit. We have bigger cap issues than Kylington, so I am interested to see how BT approaches it.

All I was saying is that there really hasn't been any recent arbitration cases that match his circumstances. The two sides are usually far apart. I don't know that there is any benefit for Kyl to sign a one year deal outside of the process. It may be the best thing to do, but who knows what the players wants.

I like your first idea. Since the 2nd one is probably closer to what we would see, I would prefer to see Dube and Coleman swap sides. Both are lefties. The third choice (yeah I am stubborn) would be: Gaudreau-Lindholm-Tkachuk Mangiapane-Monahan-Toffoli Coleman-Backlund-Dube Lucic-Ruzicka-Lewis I think that Dube has the speed to play with Backlund, and really he is suffering from lack of it. Monahan line is a new version of the original Gaudreau/Mony/Lindy line. A true RW. A LW that can shoot or pass. The 4th line is a sore sight for the opposite defense.

First off, Valimaki isn't currently counted in the cap for next year, even in my calcs. Vali for Zaddy says about $2m if Zaddy cost the exact same as this year. I'm not sure where the $3m comes from. Graves signed for 3 year @ $3.166m in 2020 instead of arbitration Weegar signed for 3 years @ $3.25m (same as Graves). Those guy had similar production to Kylington, well actually less. I hevn't looked too hard into similar ones that actually went to award.

I was talking about a trade. Some teams really suffer from being pushovers. And their young stars have no protection. I would suggest that there are at least 5 teams that would be interested in a player like that.

Well, the alternative is we sign a UFA for more money. Guddy is more of a core guy for me than Pat's idea. Short term for around $2m. Zaddy is more difficult to re-sign; younger and is already making close to $4m. If we could get him for 2-3 years at $2.5, that would be ideal, but hard to do if you pay more to Shilly. This is the last year where we can hide Valimaki in the AHL. Has to go through waivers next year. We can probably survive without Zaddy, but we need to keep toughness. Ritchie isn't enough.

He has played well enough to give him a decent raise. The problem I see is that he is arbitration eligible, so he will see a significant award. The two solutions are Lucic and Monahan, at least maybe the least impact. Lucic is $4m actual after SB is paid. Monahan has one year left and maybe harder to move unless a team needs to hit the cap floor. Maybe Seattle could use him, since they are a wasteland. The other option is Backlund. Loss of his defensive game hurts us more, but he has known value in the NHL.