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Here is our newest addition Jordan Sambrook with Kris Draper, 2 days ago after being selected in the 5th round by his favorite team, the Detroit Red Wings... And here they are 18 years ago with the Stanley Cup, after the Red Wings won back to back Championships... Pretty cool stuff!

Anybody who thinks Buffalo is some desire able landing place for Stamkos has obviously never spent much time in Buffalo. Yikes.

I've been torn on it, but I think getting Stamkos would be a good thing, even at the high salary. Kickazz makes some good points about contracts coming off the books. If Kenny can resign the RFA's for decent money and term that works (either they are RFA again at contract's end or term ends when other contracts come off the books that won't be re-signed (Ericsson, I hope, to name one)). Plus, Stamkos is young enough that he will be able to be a leader to transition some of the young guys in as well. He'd be the first real sniper the Wings have had since Shanahan (maybe Hossa, but he was only there for a season).

radulov's agent claims he is still a free agent and hasn't signed in the KHL yet it would make zero sense to sign before July 1st

And Hollands work is done for the summer. Time for golf

There are a couple of factors that might favor the Wings, or at least work against the top competition. One, and you've touched on this here, is that the Sabres and especially the Leafs are probably two or three years away from being truly competitive. At that point, Stamkos will be right around 30 years old and may be in the early stages of decline. (Truth be told, he may already be in decline.) Is he willing to wait two or three years for the team to become competitive? Would he be ok with being eaten alive by the Toronto media at the first sign of trouble? Is he willing to joing an organization that has no recent history of success, one that may not become a perennial powerhouse? (Does he want to play on a bad team coached by Mike Babcock, who will inevitably put him on the wing and coach him to play "heavier" and "more defensively"?) These teams, by their own admission, have to "learn how to win." That's not necessarily as true of the Wings. A second, related issue is the fact that all of the Sabres' and Leafs' top young talent will need substantial pay raises, which means they might find themselves where the Lightning now find themselves -- full of young talent, but lacking the cap space it'll take to keep all of those top players. Does Stamkos want to be the twelve-million-dollar reason why the Sabres can't keep Sam Reinhart or the Leafs can't keep William Nylander? Does he want to be counting for that much against a young team's cap when other players on the team are matching or exceeding his production and doing so for a fraction of his pay? Would that cause problems in the locker room? Would it lead to the younger talent demanding bigger money than they might otherwise demand, because "Well, Stamkos is getting paid this much to put up 65 points and I'm putting up 80+ points. And that's f***ed." Did I mention Toronto eats its young? Please no Boedker. He's not the player people think he is. We're talking substantially less competent than Tatar or Nyquist.

I would do $12M, yes. Why? Simple: our need is that great. Buffalo's need isn't nearly as great as ours, which is why I'm not convinced that they're prepared to go two or three million higher than the consensus market value. They don't need a Steven Stamkos. We absolutely do. (Unless, perhaps, we can acquire a guy like Martin Hanzal. But even then, there's a big talent gap between Hanzal and Stamkos.)

I'm really heavily on the Stamkos wagon, but even I say stay at 10. It's already a ridiculous number IMO, but that's where the league is going. 12 is lunacy but Tim Murray is Tim Murray. If he chases the money, fine. But we're a better fit for him than Buffalo who are overloaded at center as is.

Obviously the guy was just angling for the highest contract possible. Probably told KHL teams if they dont meet his demands he will go to the NHL and then told NHL teams if they dont meet his demands he would stay in the KHL. Eventually he knew someone would overpay him.

Smith was/is not used properly, that's an issue... same as having Helm playing top minutes or having Nyquist and Tatar on the same line.

Stamkos and Martin were teammates in Sarnia once upon a time, and he's from Windsor. Probably would take less than market value to play with his buddy. I agree with the Fowler thing too, I'd go after Trouba pretty hard. See if Nyquist+Smith+1st could get it done, maybe add a prospect. Then we'd have room for whatever.

Our free agent signing is having a healthy Drew Miller back.

I agree that you draft the best player available in the 1st round, maybe even the first three rounds, but I don't think teams generally draft by need in the 6th and 7th rounds. Realistically there isn't that much of a difference in projected talent level that late in the draft. Like I said though, this Larsson kid must be a goalie that Andersson felt we couldn't pass on. Maybe he had him projected to go in the 4th or 5th round. And if that's the case, great, maybe we'll have a stud on our hands.

The team has also had a lot of bad luck drafting goalies outside of Mrazek. Maybe their plan is to double up on goalies to ensure we always have someone with promise in the system. Other teams have great goalies seemingly grow on trees. We've managed to come up with one in a whole lot of years. I'm guessing they see it as an area they need to address.

Teams draft best available. If that's a goalie then it's a goalie. You really only draft position of need if there's really no difference in quality between two or three players when you're drafting. Likely the reason they took the goalie is because he was obviously their highest rated player available at that particular point in the draft. I'd rather have too many good goalies, than a more evenly balanced prospect pool with worse players. Too many good players is an asset. While our trades didn't necessarily pan out, it's because we had too many good forwards and defense prospects that we were able to deal Jarnkrok, Janmark, and Backman without "mortgaging our future".

Yeah, I didn't understand taking a goalie last year, but it really doesn't make sense that we drafted yet another one this year... With Mrazek set as our number one for the foreseeable future at just 24 years old, and at least two of Coreau, Paterson, Perry and Pottelberghe as viable options for backup in the near or not so distant future, I really didn't think there was a need for another goalie in Larsson...

"Pascal" - Montréal Gazette.

Did it ever occur to you that there is a reason about 10 other teams after the initial top picks passed on him as well?

What people don't realize is Bowman laid the groundwork for this trade years ago Lol

Theo Moudakis, Toronto Star.

For the love of god, leave disney.com unprotected. Vegas will not draft him.

Jurco doesn't have a role right now because he has been highly misused. I hope he's given a legit shot out of camp this year and he runs with it. His skill set and potential are way too high to give up in an expansion draft over Luke Glendening. If both were exposed, teams would chose Jurco over Glenny without question... Yes, both Glendening and Miller were acquired via free agency. Glendening straight out of college and Miller after Tampa let him walk. I never mentioned Helm because he's not in the same category as the other two. Helm is one of the best bottom six forwards in the league, whereas Miller and Glendening are fillers...

Great news. After this little "experiment" fails in epic fashion, Gary will have to resign in disgrace.

All that coke and Russian hookers fried his brain much like Putin, Radulov and Stamkos can be compared by the US currencies worth and Russia's... Laughable