travel_dude

I think worrying about the expansion draft this soon is a waste of time. Why would he re-intsate the NMC if there wasn;t some understanding between the player and GM. For now, it provides stanility for Lucic. No going to the AHL. No trade without consent. In two years, what will Lucic want? BT can decide what to do then. Ask him to waive to expise him knowing he won;t get claimed. No skin off Lucic's nose. AT worst, buy him out at a painfull cap hit, but cheap actual dollar cost.

I have to laugh. TSN has no coverage of the new agreement. The last story about it was from the 29th talking about council to debate it. Instead, they have two stories about McDavid and the Oilers. TSN managed to report the signing of Gerard and the firing of Fenton.

In Peeps pic, he shows a flat section behind the first few rows. That doesn't make sense. The rows would need to be slanted at the same angle. The top row of the top section would be the same as the first row of that section. Pictures look cool, but you have to think about why you are building it. Hockey and concerts. You can't build a facility in this day and age that doesn't allow for ease of access. Boomers are getting older. At most, a patron should have top climb about 10 rows or go down the same number. Take the best ideas from modern facilities and build it right.

It would be nice to "steer" away from designing this in homage to cowboy lifestyle. EDM and the stupid Oil drop. So annoying and adds little to the downtown. Phoenix66 talked about the Ghilla River Arena. Regardless of the outside design, it had decent insides. You didn't have to walk up to the top level of expensive seats to start walking up to the cheap seasts to walk to the nose bleeds seats. They had escalators to take you up, then you basically just had to find your seat. The thing that makes this area at least a bit sustainable is the U of Phoenix dome across the street. Otherwise, it would be a ghost town when there was no hockey.

So that makes it 10 years. Yikes. Gio will be retired by then. Only 5 Norris trophies to go. And 5 cups.

So far away. Many entertainment districts actually draw people down, not just for the games. Hopefully they can develop it right.

There would be taxable business outside the actual venue. Food, stores, etc. Creating an entertainment district would bring in those businesses. Just build a spaceship in a crappy area, and you get bars and hookers. I suppose you can build a Flames owned office tower and charge rent to the city for their workers.

That's the problem isn't it. The longer it drags on, the less likely it will come in on budget. Pushing it out by another year pushes the cost up. Depending on the economy, it could also cost a ton more later.

I'll give Zag a year to see where he is. Consider him to be an unsigned prospect prior to now. Or a re-drafted player.

Too bad they can't even seem to make a decision. The longer this goes, the less likely the support will be there in council. There is no way to spin this deal; it takes money away from other areas and gives the city a new arena with a tenant for 35 years. The alternative may be no tenant and no new arena for any purposes. I'm not sure that any common ground will be found again. But that's just me. Plenty of waste in city budgets. Any arena deal with any benefit to the city is going to cost the city.

What seems to be the case in a lot of good goalies is they develop sooner than later. Murray and Vasilevskiy both were young when they showed great promise. The runway for the good ones is shorter, which is a trap most GM's fall into. If he hasn't shown x by date y, then we are moving on.

Misread your post. Yes they were all available. As far as adding in others to the ones we had eyes on? We struggle to develop any of them with limited space. Fine if they are still in Europe or junior, but after they make the jump, not so much. One would think that Loob is keeping a watchful eye over there. Might be neglecting the KHL, but seem to be in on other leagues. Over here? The Q is tough to project. The WHL seems to be less scoring, so are the goalies any better? As much as I can point the finger at development in the NHL, the AHL has been better for us. But that's only with goalies already developed. Could be interesting to see if a new coach in Stockton has any impact. Parsons has inner demons he needs to get past, plus injury bug. Schneider was never that good, but might be able to show something. Gillies? No idea what to think. He was great when he first came into the AHL, but missing a season killed him. What is the solution considering we have struck out so often? Better drafting? Longer development? Better goalie coaches? Look to Europe for young players unsigned? The best goalies are going to go first these days, but even a 2nd rounder has risks. Demko over MacDonald? Obvious at the time, but also not determined if the future is set.

I have more faith in a young KHL goalie like Zag, over a 31 year old Koskinen. Not saying either is a great idea, but the pro experience might help.

^^^^^ Every one of those listed are drafted by other teams. Only two of them are belonging to East teams. Is EDM about to deal us Wells? I can't even see past his middling junior and pro results. The others? I don't have any faith in any of them being the next Vasilevskiy, so I don't even know if the risk is worth it. What I don't get is why you feel that neither Parsons or Zagidulin (or Schneider for that matter) have an equal chance at being the next one. Both are young. Parsons has played big-time games. Zagidulin has experience in the pro league.

The chances of picking up a young player in trade that has a good track record is slim. Missed out on Anderssen because ANA wouldn;t deal with us. Missed out on Bishop, though I'm not even sure that is a top talent. Missed out on Grubauer for lack of picks available. Same for Raanta. Not sure we had the pieces at the time to deal anyway.

Is it nature or nurture? I don't see the missed opportunity as much as the missed draft picks. Sure, our goalie coaches haven't helped, but does it come down to being able to recognize talent?

He hasn;t been much of a story since leaving here. And he wasn;t much when he was here. Who are all these goalies you speak of that we gav up on. I'm talkng about post Kipper, because it's only really relevant. Gillies? It's not like we gave up on him. More like he hasn;t sone much to provide confidence that he can be a backup. Rittich hasn't done anything to lose fans. Even a bad game has people talking about the D letting him down.

It was pretty plain to see the injury impact. Unfortunately, he was basically benched to give Smith time to prepare for the playoffs. To be honest, the overall SA% is nothing to write home about, but his win% is. At 5v5, Rittich was .929, equal to the like of Valievskiy. And Rittich had a better win record when he was letting in more goals. My relief is that we have moved on from Smith. I can;t understate the importance of that. Simplify the role of the goalie to stopping pucks and not the absurd passing to center ice and our D will be fine. Less time spent defending and more time with controlled breakouts. Personally, I think the money is a bit high for the term, but whatever. We aren't paying 4.5m for an old KHL goalie with one season of NHL experience. And we aren't hoping that Gillies can be a NHL backup able to play 30+ games. My bigger concern is supporting the growth of Parsons and Zag.

Even with the buyout and demotion of Gollis, we have 7.5m to sign both Tkachuk and Mangiapane. The Neal trade did very little to solve the cap problem, yet it was the biggest move of the summer so far. I'm okay with the price paid to two goalies, which is less than a lot of teams. I'm also okay with Bennett's deal. That leaves Brodie, Janko, Czarnik, and Frolik as the only players that could be moved for a savings or even an upgrade. Czarnik and Janko by themselves do not get you cap savings unless you trade for picks. Even then, you still need to replace the player.

I am with you. The Olympic vote was one thing. Even that was absurd. It should never have gotten to that. After the Fed decided they would underfund it, the idea should have been dropped.

Bennett is the opposite of Backlund. He needs to get rid of it sooner and use his line more. Not sure that he would be a great match for Lucic, but who really knows.

What we say on a message board versus public comments are different. If you published everything we say here, there are no players that would feel good. The pubic pieces in EDM have been a lot worse. Even the management team (Reider was the problem). But we are nothing like TO, where all media bothers with them and also tell the rest of Canada.

I was worried about Lucic when he signed in EDM. The last two years have been hard to watch, as the fans dumped on him worse than Eberle. He's not a difference maker, but neither was Neal. COnsdering the bonus paid in July and the retained salary, it's not as bad as it seems. True money that is. 4 years and 13m in real dollars (minus bonus paid and retained salary). Just don't like the cap hit, which is something that should have been accounted for in the deal, not just 750k and a 3rd that only happens if Neal is good and Looch sucks.

Do you remember Lambert from the earlier days of Flamesnation and Oilersnation? Used to pump the Oilers and trash the Flames. His big thing was keeping track of the Janko play in college. He wrote a lot more for Oilersnation. Just do a google of him and Oilersnation or Flamesnation.

The annoying thing was Francis played this up on SN to the point if asking players about it, not just souting his drivel. He did the same with Doubty comments, trying to amp up the talk. Every thing he goes on about is crap that divides the fan base. Started out saying Rittich had won the net after Smmith faltered. Then said Smith won it back. So sick of his drvel.