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Mantha plays just like Franzen, which is how I know he'll play well above his contract.

The f***? Stop saying doo doo.

As you should lol... Nah, I hear ya, I'd personally take the gamble on Larkin and Mantha though, because I feel the reward far outweighs the risk with these two. 8 years is a long term, but Larkin is only 21 years old (22 in two months). It's not like he's 25-26 and the contract would bring him into his mid 30's. He'd still only be 29 when the contract expired. I'd be hesitant to do 8 years with most 21 year olds, but Larkin is a workhorse, and the next Red Wings captain. Lock him up! I'd still do 6 years with Mantha without hesitation, but I do understand the concern from some people. The absolute minimum I'd go is 4 years though, which would bring him until he's 27. You want to lock these players up for as many of their prime years as possible. Locking both up until their 29 (Larkin - 8 / Mantha - 6) would be best case scenario in my opinion. The thing is, they don't even need to become "top tier players" for these deals to work out in our favor though. $6-6.5M for Larkin and $5-5.5M for Mantha is pretty standard for top 6 forwards. Let's say we gave both the max ($6.5M / $5.5M), that would put Larkin as the 33rd and Mantha as the 75th highest paid forwards. Hardly top tier money. That's today. What about in 2, 4, 6 years from now? Those deals would be looked upon as massive steals. Which is why Holland would be wise to try to lock them up as long as possible. Which is also why, Larkin and Mantha would be wise to take shorter term deals... Mantha has already stated that he'd prefer to take a bridge deal because he's confident he has a lot more to prove. A short bridge deal for either, scares the s*** out of me though... This is a bad take...

Not anymore. The league learned from past expansions that putting a bad product in a new market is a recipe for failure from which some teams never recover (see AZ, CBJ, ATL). They remedied that problem by giving Vegas a more competitive roster. It has turned out to be a huge success for that market and exactly how you grow your brand. If you are expanding your business into a new market, how successful do you think it will be if you only send your worst employees from other locations to operate it? Obviously you don't take your best guys and hurt your current locations. You send some of your solid, if not remarkable, employees and younger, less experienced guys with promise in the hopes that they turn into "all stars". I don't know why people think that the NHL shouldn't follow basic business principles. I wouldn't. Fleury has been the better goalie. He has been really good for a long time. I was never completely sold on Murray.

Mantha expressed he would like a short bridge deal. I think we’ll be happy with how Holland handles the RFA’s Management loves Larkin so I wouldn’t be suprised with 6-8 years @ 6.5ish Mantha 1-2 years @ 4M The rest short term @ 1-2M Green won’t be signed all summer than Holland gets him resigned cheap for short term. No way Holland offers 3+ years and teams will be scared of his neck injury

So page 1 is signing young goalies and page 2 is drafting short defenders. Got it. Well folks we got Rybar, therefore were drafting Hughes. Leftys done the math.

At this point I just want someone NEW and SHINY so they can be analyzed under the LGW forums microscope.

Sometimes I read a take so bad I have to immediately go to sleep. This was one of those times.

The guy won back to back Stanley Cups as a 21 and 22 year old rookie. What more do you need to be sold on the guy? lol I mean, Fleury was their goalie for 13 years, got them to the Finals twice, won once and melted down several times in the postseason when they had Cup caliber teams. If Fleury had played for the Pens in the postseason, the way he's playing for the Knights right now, they would have been a dynasty. Fleury's playing really well right now, probably the best hockey of his career, but I would've held onto Murray too.

I personally prefer a 50 point jack of all trades D man that can play 30 minutes if need be in the playoffs a la Duncan Keith compared to a Brent Burns who has dominant games but if you watch him night in night out he’s kind of infuriating Basically I’m team Bouchard. I’d rather our D create and play from the back end. Also, young players have been able to improve there skating once they have have access to professional coaching with the right attitude

Fleury is the definition of a cast-off. Older, expensive, relegated to backup, never been much more than average and coming off a sub-par season. Good playoff that year but still finished as a backup and had a history of weak playoffs before that. Barely anything more than Howard. Pens couldn't afford him, even if they had wanted to keep him. (And they may easily have wanted to dump him even without the cap to worry about). The only reason he was "known" to be a Vegas pick is because the trade was known. The only reason it only cost a 2nd to get Vegas to pick him is because Pitt's other options weren't that good either. All in all a very similar situation to the one that put Vanbiesbrouck in Florida. Marchessault and Smith, Perron, and probably Neal, were money saving moves. Theodore and Karlsson were at least partially motivated by money. All of them might have still happened under the old rules. (Albeit Theodore and Karlsson highly unlikely.) Haula, Tuch, Schmidt, McNabb, Miller, Sbisa, and Engelland probably don't happen under the old rules, but all those guys (and Karlsson) were 4th line/3rd pair players. Tuch and Theodore weren't even full-time NHL players yet. While it's true that things almost certainly wouldn't have turned out as well with the old rules, suggesting that they were guaranteed (or even at all likely) to have any notable success is what's ridiculous. If all their selections had performed at the levels they had prior to this year, Vegas would have finished near the bottom of the league, and no one would have been at all surprised or considered them a failure.

Sorry. You didn't bring up Hanifin. I was referring to one of their young D when I said "one of them", Hanifin being the one I would want the most. But since you mentioned Skinner and Faulk, I see now how you thought that's who I was referring to. I have a habit of skimming thru posts sometimes, I need to work on that.

Mostly agree with these. 8 year deals scare me, I would do 6 for Larkin. I would sign Mantha to more than 2 years tho. He hasn't proven enough yet to justify 6 years, but I would go 4. AA and Bert I agree with. I would go 2 years on Frk's deal. No way Green gets that deal on this team, nor should he. I would be willing to go no more than 3 years at no more than a 5.0 AAV.

Larkin and Mantha, yes. AA and Frk are not top 6 forwards. AA is a middle 6 winger who should not be given more minutes when he's cheating on defense (which happens a lot). I wouldn't even consider Frk a middle 6 F. He is a depth player, nothing more.

That would be a solid signing. Scouting and signing new blood from overseas instead of bringing back retreads is exactly what he should be doing. Whether it's what he always does or not doesn't matter to me. Holland is replacing Machovsky would be my guess. Nothing to really debate here.

Maybe the second wasn't to take Fleury but rather incentive to not take someone else. Just because everyone thought Fleury would be their selection from the Pens doesn't mean GMGM didn't tease that he might take someone else... Anyway... good for the Golden Knights. The team. The management. Their fans. ALL OF IT. I love watching other "more deserving" teams and their playoff drought, no Cup, "long suffering" fans crybaby their way through the playoffs and offseason. BOOFREAKINHOO.

Good lord. Because he signed a European player to an entry level contract that means he's going to "do the same things he always does"? What does that mean exactly? "do the same things he's always done"? By signing a young Slovak goaltender this leads you to believe he will now sign Stephen Weiss again? Please explain, I'm stumped as to what this tells you... Holland has openly stated he always wants at least 5 goalies under contract in the system. 2 for Detroit, 2 for GR, and 1 for Toledo. Right now he has Howard and Fulcher signed, with Mrazek and Machovsky gone, and McCollum and Coreau as pending UFAs. He essentially has to sign 3 goalies at least this offseason. Maybe he re-signs McCollum and Coreau, maybe not, either way he has replace Machovsky and Mrazek's spot. Rybar sounds like he might be able to replace Mrazek as backup, but can definitely at least hold down the GR starting job. OOOOOOOO a spooky GR back up goalie, I hope Holland's not up to his spooky ways of signing minor league goalies to support our AHL team again. That would scare me. Good signing. His record in Europe is better than Machovsky's was. Low risk, possibly high reward. 2 more goalies at least to go, I hope they're not McCollum or Coreau TBH

Am I the only one who doesn't think Martha is as good as he's portrayed around here? I mean, he's not bad or anything but I don't really see him as definitely a core guy.

I've seen all of Hughes, Boqvist, Bouchard, Dobson in person. I've also seen Wahlstrom, Tkachuk, Zadina, Svechnikov, Dahlin in person. I've also seen Smith, Wilde, Veleno, Farabee, Noel, in person. Et al. Not that that confers any degree of expertise on me. But, point is: I SEEN SOME S***. The highlight packages you can find for all of these players on YouTube are, by their very nature, kind of misleading. If you only knew Boqvist through one of these videos, you'd think he's the next Doughty, or at least the next Gostisbehere. If you only knew Bouchard through the highlights, you'd think his shot is the only thing he has going for him. "Truth" is, Boqvist, when he's not making pretty plays in the o-zone, spends a decent amount of his time not really getting much accomplished, sometimes getting worked over in the d-zone because he's small and slight (though, to be fair, he's only a month away from being eligible for the 2019 draft, so he's quite young). There are definitely times where he seems more Kindl than wunderkind. With Bouchard's highlights, all you see is him scoring goals with well-placed shots, and that actually sells his overall game quite short -- while, admittedly, also neglecting the fact that he often tried to do way too much by himself this season and it often bit him right in the ass. Every one of these four defensemen (and Wahlstrom, and Zadina, and Svechnikov, and even Dahlin) has his strengths and his shortcomings. Of the four defensemen, the safest pick is probably Dobson, as he appears to have the highest floor of the four while also having very real NHL top-pairing potential. But I slightly favor Bouchard over any of the others. Why? Because I feel his best qualities match up almost perfectly with our most pressing needs on the back end, needs that have fundamentally and fatally handicapped our team in the absence of Rafalski and Lidstrom. The post-Lidstrom Wings struggle mightily on the breakout; Bouchard's first pass is "elite, elite." The post-Lidstrom Wings struggle mightily to string passes together; Bouchard's passing is "elite, elite." The post-Lidstrom Wings struggle mightily just to hold the offensive blue line, especially on the power play; the o-zone is Bouchard's kitchen, his office, his house The post-Lidstrom Wings struggle mightily to run a precise, consistently effective power play; Bouchard is a masterful PP QB. Maybe more than anything else, the post-Lidstrom Wings have desperately needed a true go-to guy on the blue line, a cornerstone player, someone who plays a ton of minutes and plays in all situations. A non-ancient leader. An engine. Someone who isn't just a skilled specialist. Someone who can help lift a team out of mediocrity instead of just being along for the ride. To me, Bouchard checks these boxes, and that's a really big deal. He was the London Knights' offense this season. He was counted on to lead a team that had just lost top talent to the NHL draft and he responded by owning the captaincy, playing big minutes, playing in all situations, being (mostly) accountable on the defensive side of the puck, and putting up 87 points in 67 games in the OHL. tl;dr we're getting tkachuk