travel_dude

Want to trade some DET fans for Flames fans?

Are you going to post this on every thread? We get the point.

Which is better? Non-committal in excitement and good/bad? Or Nervously positive like Leafs and Oilers fans? If I had to place myself, I would be where Buffalo is.

Frankowsky.

He's a guy I suggested trading for in the past. Thought it was a mistake for NJ to let him go. That said, we went with too many D last year that took away from our forward depth. In fact, we waived Valimaki because we didn't want to waive Stone or Mackey or even Ritchie. I think perhaps the Flames already know what the situation is with Kylington and we will see things done based on that knowledge. The easiest thing is to give a guy like Morin up to 9 games and then send him down if Kyler comes back that soon. No waiver work necessary. We already have a 7th and potential 8th, so any LTIR situation with Kylington means we waive Gilbert and use Morin or just send Morin down. Or use Kuzetsev and send him down. Poirier would have een my choice but I don't think he will be ready. So, I guess my answer is claim Smith if you have a deal ready for Hanifin. Not a replacement, just depth.

I have often thought that the only way we would get a Backlund replacement is to trade for one. You rarely find that type through drafting and such. You can turn someone into it over time. Maybe we do have someone like that already but I would think we should look to a Hanifin trade to get it. Young guy that can be a scoring threat but also responsible. The closest we have is Ruzicka and Dube, but I doubt we would be able to get Rosie there in 2 years or push Dube towards that. I think you need someone over 6'2" to take that role. But they have be good at draws. Consistently.

He was announced as the captain today. Like you say, it's a good contract. You don't get many 2-way C's with that level of play for 4.5.

Seriously, I didn't think they could open up contracts once signed. Not for an expiring one. It's not a big deal for me, but for him it means he doesn't get traded. Had a M-NTC, but this solidifies his situation. Family comes first before cup chasing.

Term is ideal for me. While it sets up the possible 35+ contract, I think this is his retirement pay. I think he has 2 good years left, and at 4.5, it's not overpay for those years. As much as I rode him, he can remain at this level for 2 years.

Sure, but that was in the current contract. You can't go back and change it.

The cap difference between Zary and Rooney is marginal. Can only bury up to just over a million; $1.1M to be exact. Think the dead cap was $150k last year. So, really you would still have the $150k dead and the difference between Zary and the $1.1M. Cap savings around $200k. Assuming he is waived and not claimed.

Bump - this may have been messed up due to the attack of the bots.

I believe they have announced the captaincy as well. I don't know where Lebrun got 3 seasons since it's a 2 year deal.

Terrible news. Things seemed so positive, even knowing that it was a long shot.

Yeah, it's a bit like a guy going through puberty.

Wouldn't have passed the sniff test regular season. He cut back when he skated into the circle. Too obvious

When you start thinking to yourself that Loubo's or Hunaryan's voice would be an improvement, then you know something is wrong. I have nothing against female broadcasters, but Meaghan's voice was hard on the head. Much like Lia Hextall's. Cassie is only annoying due to the monotone drawl. The guy from EDM's home games is 10x worse than any I am pointing out.

McD wants to pretend he is tough. That's why he stands behind the tough guys that protect him.

Vladar is making a case for the 3 headed monster this season. I'm not going to suggest that Wolf is ready or not ready from a single pre-season game. It was poorly played and he was a bit off in his timing, which is what I expect him to be at this point. Not so much that he's a slow starter, just that his skills ramp up as the season goes along. Maybe the best thing for now is to start him on the Wranglers, just to get him up to game speed. Bring him up to actually play a game and keep him up, not yank him up and down. Markstrom should not really play 60 this season, so the opportunity is to have a 42, 20, 20 split perhaps might make some sense. Ah well, discussions for another day; not enough view yet, no real NHL level competition. The messiness of a pre-season game with 70% kids does not really lead to a good evaluation of any of the regulars. Maybe I didn't notice it, but Backlund wasn't exactly a star out there. Mangiapane looked like his timing was off, and it may be the latter stages of rehab allowing for that. By comparison, Dube looks like he's in season form. I don't think it's so much a question of Rosie beating out Pelletier for 2LW. The most obvious need with Kadri is someone to shoot not pass. I saw some chemistry with Rosie-Kadri-Dube so far and none of them overpass. That puts Coronato in an awkward spot. Ideally, he is played as atop 6. I don't think he displaces Govich or Dube, though. Using him with Backlund seems like a waste since it's used to shut down and already has Mangiapane and Coleman as fits. That leaves 4th line to remaining players like Duehr, Pelletier, Rooney, Coronato, Zary. I don't have problems icing a speedy 4th line, but the minutes left are too small to properly develop NHL top 6 potential players.

The better passing down low tonight was an improvement. The pursuit after a shot was there too.

I worry less about the term than the AAV. 4 years is a long time for sure, but anything close to his current salary AAV is going to kill us and should. We aren't looking at a former scoring C and want to reward him, nor are we in the business of setting up a retirement fund. He deserves no more than what he is worth on the open market. Even that may be considered high since you don't have to overpay a UFA to come here. When I look at his stats, I see a lot of impact when he played with Tkachuk, but not as much with Mangiapane. That's a bit odd. Mange scores 35 and Backlund has an average assist number. This past year, Mange scores far less and Backlund has a career assist number and carreer total. We are likely to see a similar line of Mange and Coleman this year, so Mange might rebound and Backlund drop? Regardless of having the next Backlund available in prospects, we have to plan for the replacement. JT might have been a good option, but we had a GM frozen in place. Zero risk game. Unwilling to lose a trade to make us better long term. I'm fine with that assuming there is a well thought out plan not just a didn't know what to do plan.

Looks like a deep forward corp. I like that 2nd line makeup, and waiting to see how JT plays on a new team. Took a ton of faceoffs last season, but part of that may be he was bumped up due to injuries and staffing changes. Could be a steal.

Cooley scoring nice goal in Melbourne just now.

He was 5/6 because that's the depth we had. Our top 4 was pretty deep even considering Kylington was out. We had more problems with the 6/7 last year and waived one that could have been a decent 5/6. Or he was a bust. Or a 3/4.

They tried him in that role last year and I don't think Sutter was happy. I think that has a lot to do with the demotion. I was expecting them to waive Rozie at one point. Rooney was so left field, so you may be onto something. Maybe with Sutter gone, BT would trade for him.