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Kovalchuk - Jagr - Vanek Let's make it happen in '08!

Ken Kal liked this on twitter today (Ken Kal f***s) HYPE

On the top pairing with John Carlson.

We need to be careful... throwing kid after kid into the NHL to either sink or swim is the Edmonton model. We do need character vets around to shield and teach these younger players. That said we also need to be more willing to push aside a veteran when it's clear he's no longer needed in that role. I think Daley is a character player and was a good signing. ***IF*** they resign Green it needs to be 4 million and 1 year max with no trade restrictions and that's if he has a clean bill of health.

Yep, my mind went straight to AA. Could just be a truism, though. It's not like he's gonna say, "I would most certainly NOT love to make a value-for-value trade as part of the rebuild process." It'd help if we had more context, but I dunno if that's available. If AA does get dealt in a "value-for-value" trade, I wouldn't necessarily expect the return to be a defenseman, since the trade market value of a good young defenseman -- whether he's NHL-proven or an unproven teenage prospect -- is crazy right now. Maybe a guy like Alex Wennberg is a semi-realistic target? 23-year-old centerman. Swedish. Coming off a disappointing 8-goal, 35-point regular season for a Blue Jackets team that some feel needs to add some pure goal-scoring punch in the offseason. Overtaken by Pierre-Luc Dubois on the depth chart. Under contract for five more years @ $4.9M per year, which is looking pretty ugly right now but could end up being pretty good value. Or how about Boone Jenner? I'm sure Holland will pursue him if there's actually something there to pursue. I guess my assertion that we can "rule out Tavares" doesn't necessarily follow from Holland's statement that the Wings aren't going to be a player in free agency (or whatever Holland's actual statement was). It's possible he simply meant he's not going to be aggressively pursuing multiple players like he normally does. I'm hoping the Vanek-Wings ship has sailed. He's super-skilled and the Wings seemed to like him as a teammate, but he's also old and slow and a defensive liability and a subpar possession player. With Rasmussen looking to make the team out of camp and Andrei Svechnikov/Tkachuk/Zadina possibly being in the mix, I've got no interest in a veteran stopgap/roadblock PP specialist at the moment. That's just me tho.

This trade looking better and better the longer Tatar can't produce lol.

I was thinking exactly the same thing. I hope not. If you can land a player like that, you do it. Rebuild or not, if we can afford him and he wants to sign here - do it. As far as Vanek goes, I mean, we could do worse. He would be like the forward equivalent of signing Daley. At least it would give us all something more to debate.

There's no question Holland is saying all the right things. Now he needs to put those words into action. I'm hopeful, but he's disappointed me in the past... Cautiously optimistic...

Yeah, this is like that time when Johnny Depp wanted out of his 21 Jumpstreet contract, but couldn't on account that he would have been taken to court for breach of contract. Finally, after season 4, Stephen J. Cannell let him out of his final year of it. This is exactly like that. I still hate Johnny Depp to this day for killing Tom Hanson.