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If Samuelsson successfully avoids a buyout by claiming injury, then he's a little ***** who should be punished through banishment to the minors.

Knowing that other teams are talking to Brunner's agent right now is like someone trying to sleep with your spouse. I feel dirty. And angry. Like I want to set stuff on fire. Edit: like if I was in a bar right now, I would break a beer bottle on the table and cut a b**ch.

I'll cry if we get Ribiero then puke about 10 times. Gutless player.

Right, because we only have mistake free defensemen on this roster. He plays his ass off and is great at blocking shots and is a big body. I'm not saying he's the next Larry Robinson, but he'd be a good player to have in the lineup. I like him better than a Lashoff. The other young defensemen in the system are still a few years away from being ready.

I dont want to hear it anymore. Its an assinine argument to discuss millions of dollars and whos worth what. Proof: We had Bertuzzi, Samuelsson, Tootoo, and White RIDING THE FREAKING PINE IN THE PLAYOFFS. That's 8.5 MILLION DOLLARS doing nothing for us. NOTHING. Isn't it obvious NOW that our GM is an imbecil? So let's keep our discussions to "who benefits us more" instead of "what can we afford". Im sorry for the capgeek thread. Thats obviously not a helpful tool, as our buffoon GM only looks for loyalty points and not value. "5 million is too steep for Lecavalier." You had White and Sammy on the bench, so how's that? "6 million is too steep for Horton." You had White, Sammy, and Tootoo on the bench, so how's that?" Is there anyone on this planet that believes healthy Bertuzzi/Sammuelsson/White/Tootoo playing in place of Nyquist/Eaves/Colo/Miller gets us by the Ducks and Blackhawks? Hell no. So we must all come to the logical conclusion - money/salary cap is being poorly utilized. The problem is NOT that we dont have enough. FIRE HOLLAND. HE STINKS.

One of the most ridiculous posts ever. Remember that time against Nashville when Lidstrom let Klein (or whoever) go right past him to the net and score a huge goal in the playoffs ? Good times. You reference one incident for Boychuck not being a 'defensive dynamo' as you claim. Obviously you don't watch him on a regular basis, he is a very hard defense men to play against, you will see this year.

Jesus. How hard is it to see that Samuelson, White, Tootoo, Bertuzzi, Quincey , etc are all signed to short term deals. Holland knows this. Is it a coincidence that Bert and Sammy's contracts are up next year when Ericcson's due for a raise, for example. Clarkson, Horton, and Lecavalier all wanted minimum five year deals!!!! Understand? See the difference between those contracts and the guys I mentioned above. I'm no Holland slappy, but use your friggin brain. + July 5th was Friday last time I checked.

I actually like Mule as a 2nd line center. Force him to work. esteef

Scary stuff. At what point does the recklessness of a guy like Raffi Torres overshadow his contribution to the point of giving him a sort of permanent ban? Same thing with a guy like Cooke. Is it really worth risking the careers of other players because of destructive, repeat-offender 3rd/4th line plugs? I mean there has to be some equation whereby the number of suspensions/games lost by the victimized player as result of your actions divided by your ice time, point production, etc. equals expulsion. Just a thought. Carry on....

I thought I would start a thread tonight for those fans who take the time to look at the big picture - rather than broadcast any anger towards one of the best GM's in the NHL just because it didn't go our way today. So before you elect Paul Holmgren as our next GM, consider that since 2007 he has signed 6 contracts to a combined 61 years and $374.5 Millon to players who are NOT currently playing for Philadelphia. (Shea Weber, Mike Richards, Jeff Carter, Danny Briere, Ilya Bryzalov, and Chris Pronger) you can also add James Van Riemsdyk to that list. Here are 5 overreaction's I have been exposed to since 10 AM this morning. 1. Vincent Lecavalier - I"ll admit I was intrigued by the possibility of him centering our second line next year...but that's about it. He is 33 years old, is already too slow, and now playing with house money for the duration of this ridiculous 5 year contract. My question is: How motivated is this Stanley Cup champ, who hasn't played more than 65 games or scored more than 25 goals since 09-10, and hasn't been a + player since 06-07 going to be for the next 5 years? Sadly enough, at the same age, Johan Franzen has actually put up better all around numbers since then and who on this site hasn't posted in a "trade Franzen" thread. 2. David Clarkson - Thank God. Why does anyone want this guy signed to a long term contract at 6+ Million per season. Those figures are entering Datsyuk range, and are already in Zetterberg range. Congratulatons on your one 30 goal season Dave, but considering that Hakan Loob, Stephane Richer, Jonathon Cheechoo, Wayne Babych and Dino Cicarelli all scored 50 once... No Thanks. 3. Buyouts - There are like 1 or 2 good centres left in this years free agent crop that 29 other teams have interest in, meaning we probably aren't going to get who we want (Stephen Weiss) because someone will overspend when it's the wrong thing to do (Philadelphia). Collatarally, this means that with 10+ million in the bank and very few targets to spend it on right now, why would we burn our last compliance buyout on either Sammy or Bert who both have 1 year remaining on their contracts, when we still have 4 players signed until at least 2019. The point is, we aren't spending 10 Mill this summer on free agents meaning there is no point in getting rid of any assets simply for cap relief. 4. Lack of Team Talent? - We played Chicago harder than anyone they met en route to winning the cup, and had 3 chances to eliminate them. As of right now, the team will be adding Helm, Bertuzzi, Dekeyser, and Tatar to next years full time roster and losing Filpulla and White for sure. Brunner and Cleary remain to be seen, but can someone tell me how next years team isn't better than last years based on injuries alone, and before you take into account the development of all of our rookies? 5. The Time Is Now - Has anyone seen next years free agent class? Before you erase Vincent Lecavalier from your CapGeek thread team, and visit nhltraderumours.com to pencil someone else into our top 6 while maintaining about $14,000 in Cap Space, consider the future.

Here's my take on things. Sammy and Tootoo need to stay. Why? Glad you asked. If you know me, you know that I loves me some Sammy and Tootoo, but I'm not taking my personal feelings into account. Here's my reasoning on Sammy. He will not be "better" until after the amnesty buyout window closes. Therefore there are three options. 1) Trade. No good there. Who'd take him? 2) Regular buyout. Better, but he'd count against the cap. 3) LTIR. He wouldn't be taking up a roster space. We could exceed the cap by the amount of his contract for the purposes of replacing him (which is as close as we can come to having him not count against the cap considering that the GR guys are making less).<--- unless the new CBA states differently. Here's why we need Tootoo. 1) We need someone to punch Sammy in the chest daily to make darn sure that he stays on LTIR so Tatar can stay up with the big boys where he belongs.

I agree with this. Holland will sign 20 bozos to 40 mil total, but will scratch his head and tell us the price is too steep on an 8 million dollar norris candidate. Meanwhile, we have 7 million of salary RIDING THE PINE for 14 playoff games. Holland is a buffoon.

Pass. He got beat up by Crosby for God's sake.

No, no, no. He was referring to the 'Dan Cleary Economics' not being taught in school nowadays. It's the theory that some consumers like Ken Holland will scour the market for new and fresher products only to end up at the checkout stands with same ol' reliable off-brand that he's bought for years. It's good for the local economic cap but bad for the Unrestricted marketable products.

$60 million for 19 players occupied for next year and $48 million already occupied by 8 players the season after next.

I don't have as much of a problem with Torres as I do with Cooke. I know accidents happen but based on HOW they happen and his attitude about hits I just can't stand Matt.

Kronwall has definitely had a few questionable hits. For guys that hit a lot sometimes things happen in a fast game. Torres, however, has gone far beyond that. The guy's a serial headhunter and a dirty player.

He's not a buffoon. But he is becoming overcautious. He is taking the long term approach. Which has flaws. For instance, you'll never win the Cup if you wait year after year for the solution to come from within. No matter how the kids develop, we will always have needs. So how many years can he just wait? I don't hate his moves, but I worry that he has lost his "win now" mentality in favor of "make playoffs and win two rounds.". It's nice to be consistent, but we fans dont care about revenue. We want to see Cups.

i think you guys are looking at it all wrong. its not an issue of supply and demand. its an issue of cap circumvention. GM's still are not held accountable for bad contracts. sign a bad contract? bury it in the minors, loan the player to europe, amnesty buyout, regular buyout,place on LTIR for multipler years, etc etc... or even structure the contract to take advantage of the cap rules. now, many of those things were taken care of in the new CBA. so maybe it will get better. but huge contracts to overrated free agents will immediately end once teams like NYR, PHI, TOR, and MTL don't have the cap room to offer insanely stupid contracts. but since players like redden, pronger, huet, and many others can get off the cap, free agency will continue to be stupid crazy.

This guy would be the perfect 2nd line center for us. Too bad it could never happen. Apparently he's close to an 8 year extension with the Bruins.

The idea of seizures terrify me. Hopefully he really is all right.

I don't think anyone's arguing (well, at least...) that Holland wasn't a great GM at one point. What a lot of people are noting is that as we have moved far enough into the new era where we really started feeling the weight of the cap, Holland's struggled to show that he can maneuver well in free agency or with other teams via trade. That is a real problem, right now. It doesn't matter that once upon a time he did this or that; "this or that" from "way back when" have no bearing on "hear and now." Hear and now, he can't figure out how to sign or trade for difference makers, and he's tried plenty. Holland's let people slip away that he shouldn't. He continues to cling to players he shouldn't. He overpays for mid-level talent based largely it seems on familiarity. He tries to underpay for high-level talent, which ultimately has failed every time. And when he fails, he's the king of revisionists, make no mistake. That guy finds a way to reshape everything that happened as part of some master plan, and it must be working, because there's plenty of non-critical thinkers who keep falling for it and praising Holland because of what he did in another era now long past us. Oh, I guess it's easy forgetting in an instant that Holland was desperate to throw $9 million plus at both Suter and Parise last summer. Oh, that's right, I remember now, Holland is so smart for not overpaying for free agents! Now that we didn't sign them... "We like our team." I'm not trying to take anything away from what Holland has done, but if he was as great of a GM as people want to paint him to be in this cap era, he would not be struggling so much in the free agency and trade markets. You can say all you want about what he did in the past, but no one willing to be objective can say that Holland has shown that he has a strong handle, let alone any handle, on helping this team via trade or free agency lately. And like it or not (for the sake of some of ever-shifting argument), trade and free agency are still very important parts of this game.

I'd rather have a proven goal scorer over Clarkson who scored 30 goals one time. Camel puts up at least 60 points almost every year and his lowest goal total not including this half season where he scored 20 in 38 games is 25 goals. For the difference of 1 million between them I'll take vanek any day

Holland can stay put and he will still be the best GM ever because this team already have all the pieces it needs. Got it! Now delete thread...

Not gonna lie, with how much cap room we had this season. I would have much more preferred Hudler at 4 million then Sammy at 3...