travel_dude

Ruzicka is playing in that spot on the national team in Slovakia right now. Good to not just have LW's. I think you mentioned that Gawdin is too slow? Ruzicka has looked good in the AHL and his limited play in NHL.

Just asking. Was trying to balance the cap in my mind. 3M was Mangiapane-Backlund-Tkachuk, so I have no problem seeing offense from Backlund's line. I think you could go a few ways with the top 9 players you have identified, but I won't get into that. There is no doubt in my mnd that Monahan can return to glory, as long as his surgery and rehab have fixed the problem. BTW, glad to have you back in form. Know you were really down on the team.

Good place for a positive message, for a change. Frustration has been part of this community for many years and the blame shifts a lot. We are lucky to have a team to support that tries every year. The GM has his faults, but does the work to do something...every year. Things don't always work out and sometimes they backfire, but he does the work. Having Lucic and Zadorov and Tkachuk on the same team will make a lot of teams look over their shoulders. Maybe that open up the game a bit for the skill players? Maybe we don't see as many cheap shots? Maybe teams react to our lineup and are forced to play in the gutter instead of river hockey? Anyway, I will post more stuff over the coming days.

Not that I disagree, but what does that do to the lineup? You have Lindholm that could be a C or RW, Mangiapane and Gaudreau that is best on LW, Coleman and Dube at RW. Monahan, Dvorak, Backlund, and even Lindholm at C. Lindholm was at least as effective as Monahan at C. Do you then trade Monahan for a top 4 D?

We have a little more than $3m in cap remaining, so any big deal will need money going out. Not that I am sure we will make that kind of deal, but it's the only way we can now.

Essentially the same deal that Mangiapane got for 2 years. Get the extra year without increasing too much. It's high than I expected, but BT believes he will be another Mangiapane level player. Support your drafted players that are actually raising their values.

I have a low opinion of the Oilers, no doubt. I think they are missing the boat on improving the team. They could have a real competitive team and they have several players now that could change part of their game to less goals for and less goals against. But the focus is always "more scoring". Get Barrie who puts up points but is a liibility. Lose Larsson who was decent and tough to play against; not the best player in the world but decent. Bring in Hyman to score goals. He's a good player but scoring is not what they need more of.

Wolf is the top goalie prospect we have. He has to get starrts to really have a fair opinion of him. I would also say, it's fair to give Parsons and the other new guy a chance with decent defense.

We get the gist most times, so no worries. As far as bloggers, I read most of the ones for the Oilers and Flames. And I find the Oilers bloggers are a combo of realistic people, fan boys, Oiler mouthpieces and general lack of understanding of hockey. Sean has posted reasonable stuff about signings, trades and such. But his reasonableness gets away from him when he starts talking about the Flames. He can be fair and also so biased he is called out by Oiler fans. I'm more critical of particular moves by some teams. I don't know the east as well, but I do see a certain amount of games.

I don't mean to contradict the story, but Perfetti is post December 31st. I don't know if the new agreement really affetcts Zary, as the wording I have seen is that 2001 born players can play in the AHL. I have seen numberous reports that Zary starts in the AHL if he doesn't go to the NHL. FN has talked about it and Pike is pretty on when it comes to CBA and transfer agreements etc.

The rule is 20 in the calendar year, so both Wolf and Zary go to the AHL this season. To be exact, turn 20 before December 31st. This changed some time ago.

^^^^^ Bwahahaha

He's 19 and will be 20 in September, so he's good to go in the AHL, along with Pelletier. Both will have opportunity to make the team. My issue with the D is a lack of a definitive #1. Gio was training off from being one, and we don't have one at that level or higher. I would say that we have the makings of one or two top pair D, but they need to be more consistent. Beyond that, we have the makings of 2nd and 3rd pairs. Middle of the road overall. That's fine. Not ideal, but fine during growth.

I would not be PO'd had we drafted Schneider. Same way I'm not PO'd about Zary. C or D, which should always be the first choices in a BPA situation. You can argue the D was better than the C, but it's probably almost equal if not equal. People complain about LHS as if they are taboo. A LHS LW may be a lesser need in the case of a BPA, but there are sop many that are RW.

I read the blogger and frankly I am amazed that he has a belief that the Oilers, with arguably worse D (than last year) and no solution in nets will be challenging for #1. Smith played 3 months after being "injured" to start the season. Expecting him to maintain a 920 season against teams other than the North for a full season is crazy. They will score goals. They will let in as many or more. So, Guenther went to ARI, right? How is that helping the Nucks. Demko may have played well in a short season, but I wouldn't say he is better than JM. Seattle really didn't get impact players; they got some interesting players which could gel and be better than what they are on paper. Vegas without MAF is not spectacular. They are a good team, but I don't know if they may have peaked and are on a bit of a downward slide.

So, you take as truth what an Oilers blogger says? Yes, that is what he is, and he also is the Kraken blogger. He knows nothing about the Flames other than when we have played the Oilers.

With 13F, 7D and 1G showing in the cap calculation, we are at minimum 1 position not filled. At the least, subtract $750k for Vladar. Once Dube signs, we likely demote one F. When Mackey signs, Welinski or Kylington or Mackey goes to the AHL. BT will spend to the cap or close to it. A PTO is not going to make much of a dent in that. If we make a trade, it might mean some money going out and a bigger cap coming in. In other year, we had to send dollar for dollar. I'm just saying there is more chance this year than in other years.

Sometimes it's the team he's dealing with won't budge. He want's player X and the other team wants Y + Z. Not being willing to give up Z is not completely wrong, but he doesn't close. There have been other things at play different than this year. We have available cap, so we don't have to restrict to money in and money out. We can still do something major. You may be right though. I just have this sense that something akin to a shakeup is coming. Not for the sake of making a trade, but a shakeup of the core. Gio was step one, whether that the best idea or not. Adding depth at C and in the middle/bottom six should be looked at. Adding a good D would also help. I realize that we can't do it all. We should be able to improve what we had last year, without just relying on ELC's to take major steps.

I think they may have been holdups for the last month. Teams may be of the opinion now to move on. The time for surgery and recovery is making this less and less likely. At the same time, there has been very little action. There are probably about 5 teams looking at C. And multiple teams looking to upgrade D. I don't think we are set. We have done nothing to address the situation many have complained about. I doubt BT wants to go into the season with simply a couple of PTO's.

Well those are players I like for this team, but I don't know if any of them is PTO invited. It's a safe way to get a look at them and then sign them, but I think most will get deals. There are a few things blocking some of the finishing pieces for a lot of teams. Eichel, Tarasenko, and a couple others that are in play. They get in the way of teams looking for C's, as the teams in on Eichel can't trade a C unless they got Eichel.

Well, if it was so easy to trade into the top 10, at least one team would have done it. The big fail was the play-in round we won. From the first round losers onward, the picks got to be Zary etc. One really not a lot better than others. I could really care less about Button's list. He's as much a blowhard as the other TV guys. He has some sentient things he says, but he's like Pierre McGuire except he doesn't say "monster".

Yet, this year he had a bunch of D rated high compared to a lot of outfits. 4 in the top 10. 9 games for Askarov in the KHL. 1 game last year. Askarov was very high in Button's list. In his draft year, he was a 920 in the VHL, where he played all of 18 games. No offence, Askarov could be the next Vasilevskiy. 10 games total in the KHL is a pretty small sample size.

If you have any support of Button, he had Zary ranked at 11th, Bobby Mac 22, ISS at 15. Getting a C that has a ceiling of 1C or a possibly less high ceiling RW, who would you pick? I admit I do like picking top ranked RD, but Schneider was not top ranked. Bobby Mac had him at 14, so it wasn't really consensus better than Zary. It wouldn't have bee a dumb pick, but I also don't think Zary was.

Revisionist history. Zary outscored Foerster in less games. Schneider had a good season in the WHL. Having strong 2-way C's is as important as a good two way D. Schneider has warts as does Zary. Neither are sure things. Each has negatives about their games.

There's nothing wrong with Zary or Pelletier. Doesn't matter if you have envy of Schneider or Lapierre. Foerster was ranked 2nd round by most, so he wouldn't have been on the radar for 1st round. A defense over a centre. Both are areas of need.