travel_dude

I really hate when these insiders start up crap. If it's not obvious to the owners we are not making the playoffs this year, they have no clue. You can only expect to regress when subtract two top 2 D from the team. Why Dreger is talking about this bugs me. Is this what he thinks or is this what he was told in confidence or to be leaked?

Vegas already traded 2025 to us, so they are only able it or be bottom 10 to keep it. We have a few kicks at the can as of now. MTL might actually want our pick this year. Don't know.

Poor Lindholm (LOL). Thought he found a new home in VAN. Likely to move in a trade or as a UFA. Toffee works in VAN because he's a high possession shooter. Possession tends to be a problem sometimes. Lindholm should have worked for them, but he was miscast.

Vegas is "highly unlikely" to trade the 2024 1st. They could trade the 2025 first and then we get the 2026 first. I say unlikely because they are hosting the draft and the only reason they get to go to the podium is the 22024 fist. Sure Bettman will let them up there initially, but the love their show. Having no 1st makes that less of a show.

I don't know. He should have been C last year because he was the logical choice. He wanted to know that we had a plan. Plan has changed completely. Backlund may even want out now, but he is smart enough to shut up. He met with Connie to find out what the new plan was. Seemed satisfied with it.

Next debate trade Markstrom now or in the summer. Is Jersey even interested now?

I think it goes back to the change in management. Maloney saying we are going for it, backed by the owners. GM hired with a mandate to make the playoffs. That's fine, that happens across the league until they signal rebuild. 3 players at least signaling they didn't like where we were headed. Toffoli didn't like the process. Backlund wasn't sure. Lindholm saying he was undecided. Hanifin saying he wanted maybe to go to the US. Coaching change on top of that, where some players whined about Sutter and some loved him. I don't blame the GM for not dealing everyone away in the summer, since he wasn't even sure what he would have the coming season. Maybe a non-rookie GM makes that decision a lot sooner. Either way, the trades didn't happen until the last days before TDL. All three of the traded players indicated they were not talking. Should have reacted a lot sooner. Summer, early fall or after the first 20 games. Might be in a lot different standings situation today, for better or worse. But at least we would know what we are doing.

Maybe we can hold off evaluating the trade before we see what the team does. Miromovov may be the next thing. Sharky already is and could rise to new heights. BZR might be the next top D in scoring. We may pick the next one in the draft. We chose to sell guys that didn't want to be here and that was known league wide. Mistakes were made.

It's still a concern when you draft Russian players that are playing there. We have two right now that are not signed, both goalies. I wouldn't be going out of my way to draft them unless the scouting is well done. But anyway, we have lots now from Eastern Europe. They likely all know Kuzmenko from his KHL days. Connie has set the table to draft more and cleared out the culture club. Don't want to be here? Moving on. Anyone else? Markstrom should be moved for other reasons. He's a luxury now for the next couple years. We are flush with mid to bottom pair D and lots of prospects. We still lack top F prospects. Are we able to do that via Markstrom or maybe Mangiapane?

He's listed on the roster and they just re-signed him, so yes he's gonna play. Not for those reasons. He will play because he's more than a AHL player and better than some choices we have. Without seeing him play, I would suggest he is better than Gilbert and Oesterle. I have seen some vegas fans suggest he would have gotten a lot more as a UFA. Becuase he is good.

I haven't looked but how much cap do they have to work with. Would they need PITTS to retain? Is a 1st enough for a top line player? I think they are looking for a top prospect or two as well. Maybe that's why we didn't get either from Vegas. Already offered.

And what are they going to add to a 2025 1st to get him? The prospect we were talking about earlier? Something else?

They obviously didn't want to move this year's pick in any trade. Yes, that leaves the 2025 pick available. Is there a player out there that going to get a 2025 1st for? One that they can afford that is. Looking at their remaining picks for the next 3 drafts... 2024 - 1st, 3rd, 6th and 2x7th 2025 - 4th, 5th, 6th if they win one round this year (we get the 1st or they trade it) 2026 - no 4th round pick and no 1st if it moves from 2025. If they are dealing the 2025 1st they are going to have to find something not already offered to add to it. Any players that warrant a 1st are going to cost something besides that.

I like the VAN picks and prospects. We get a 20 something pick if they lose in round 1. Not much worse if they lose in round 2 or 3. Get a 3rd if they win 2 rounds. Have a lot of results to worry about. Vegas winning round 1, but not againt VAN or Dallas. Dallas making it to the cup finals. VAN making it to the 3rd round. Anything else? Sheesh

Vegas is unlikely to trade the 2025 pick this TDL, unless they have a big deal ready. With that, the only way we get a top 10 pick is if they are a top 10 pick in 2025. Then we have a chance for a lotto pick in 2026.

Well they have 8 players listed as C's. They still have one of the worst D around. They score but that's it. The goalie is the only reason why they don't give up 5 per game.

This got a lot tougher than I originally thought. With Miromanov, we have a KHL and AHL vet with some NHL experience. Besides that we have Weegar, Andersson and Pachal all being RHS. Have no interest in Oesterle playing for this team now. I would go with Kylington-Weegar (top pair) Hanley-Andersson (best PK and likely top 5 on 5 minutes) Pachal-Miromanov (not sure if this really works. If we can't get Pachal or Miromanov to play LD, then we have to go with: Weegar-Andersson Kylington-Pachal Hanley-Miromanov This may make the most sense anyway. I don't know, it's giving me a headache.

If you knock out Kuzmenko coming back in the Lindholm deal, it still beats the heck out of the Vegas trade. Kuzmenko may be considered a cap dump like RJ was for COL, but he has game. At least for us it makes sense. Capfriendly has the 3rd rounder being a conditional 2025 pick not a 2024 that turns into a 2025 2nd. It's 2025 one way or the other.

Not sure why they needed to extend thenew guy for that much. I get why they needed to do it now, just not sure why he gets that much.

Derek Englund 2.0

Only team really asking was NJ that I can tell. I think they are throwing in the towel, so unless they want to trade now over the summer, they might as well wait. Picks too valuable for a lotto team.

There's almost as many conditions as picks. Need a 3D map to connect all the conditions.

Okay time to work on waiver pick ups. Anderson-Dolan or Moveare. Moveare has a 2 year deal signed past this year. But he is league minimum in that deal. Do it and we can look at trading Rooney as well. Maybe even Oesterle (for future considerations). Duehr for a 5th (of Scotch).

Okay, I am done with griping. Sucky return on a top D available. Either a rookie GM getting schooled. Or nobody wanted to pay that much. In essence we got more for Bennett. Way more for Lindholm. Better condition on the 3rd to 2nd rounder. I will trade you a 1st rounder next year if I don't spend it elsewhere. In hindsight, Vegas is holding the draft and wants to get the kudos on the draft floor round 1. There's always something with this team

So I guess that means we need to trade another player to Vegas to ensure we at least get the 2025 1st round pick.