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Cutter Gauthier is really good. He was just the 1C for Team USA at the World Juniors. But he left Philly in a bad spot by telling them he wouldn't sign with them, so the return is suboptimal. Drysdale is good but injury prone, hence why the 2nd was thrown in.

This is why I want Quenneville so bad. He's an excellent systems coach (like Jon Cooper for example), but also a total hardass that demands his players work their asses off (like Torts). The league needs to reinstate this guy who Yzerman can hire him.

As one of the Toronto area Red Wings fan on the board, here's my thoughts on the Nylander contract... I'm not surprised by the number. Based on what Matthews, Tavares, and Marner are making, I figured Nylander would want the same. So the Leafs have Matthews at $13.5 Million, and now Nylander $11.5 Million, the key now is what do the do with Tavares and Marner. If they bring back Tavares and Marner, they're INSANE. I'm hearing media people say Tavares needs to take a team friendly contract, and then sign Marner. I personally would let both Tavares and Marner go. Marner's going to want $12.5 Million. Sure fans will probably want to kill me, but the Leafs have to free up money. The need more depth, and they need to spend more money on defense and a goalie. I don't think trading Marner is worth it, because I'd have to get similar salary back. What the Leafs need is to free up money.

Babcock would never............

All in all I'm happy with the win to be sure. I keep hoping that we're going to come out and look like we did during the first part of the season and I think that's unrealistic in the short term. In order for us to play that fast, aggressive, freewheeling style of game you have to have a ton of faith in your goalie. I think Lyon is slowly earning that trust from the team, but given how things have played out this year I think it's going to take a minute. I also think the team is missing Kostin pretty bad. I realize that seems silly because he's a depth winger, but he was a consistent part of the lineup in the early part of the season and his physicality really dragged the rest of the team into the fight. If, for example, he goes out there in the first period last night and beats the sh*t out of Gudas (it's coming) then I think the rest of their team chills out on the rough stuff, and the rest of our team plays a little taller than they are.

The french announcing team is probably the most unheralded part of Shoresy.