jawbreaker

Atlanta is finally doing something. They need to improve, and fast. Kovalchuk is not happy to rot in the last place. They should add some D's, and centre (Demitra, Yashin). Ron Hainsey is not great signing at this price, but at least it's not fingering themselves.

I bet, that we will sign Flip for one year. Then re-sign Hank for 7M. After that we will wait until seasons is over, find out the new cap. Try to convince Hossa to take 7M long-term deal, and then re-sign Flip, or Mule.

The Leafs should try to sign some Dman, whose name is Middle. Then they would have the best defensive pairing of all time.

Actually salary cap has lost his purpose. I think that a lot of teams are limited by the budged again. They should just set max. salary per year to one player (10M for example), and move forward without the cap.

What did GM's, who gave this crazy contracts, put in their pipe? 3M is fair price (at least it was), but these days guys like Sammy would probably get around 3M.

I might be wrong, but Redden had not just one average season. His last two seasons were not so impressive, Sens tried to trade him several times. I really hope that these signings will be good, but they are the risky ones.

I don't get it. After bad season(s) players are getting still great contracts, even better than they had. Look at Ryder, Redden. This doesn't make sense. GM's are hoping that these guys can bounce back. Good luck for them!

Hudler, Filppula (and maybe even Franzen) are as inconsistent as Naslund. But what happens, if someone of our 40pts players will have an awful year. Naslund can provide those points. His better choice than most of the forwards, who are still available. Plus, he won't have so much pressure on him: he won't be the captain, and DET is won't be expecting him to score 80 points. If he doesn't want to sign a reasonable contract, then we should/will pass him.

Well... he still can score 50-60pts. For 2-3M for 1 year (if for 2 years, then it must be 2M) it would be good. We don't actually need him, but he won't make our team worse.

D. Cleary 63 games 42p J. Hudler 81 games 42p T. Holmstrom 59 games 40p M. Samuelsson 73 games 40p J. Franzen 72 games 38p V. Filppula 78 games 36p Everybody makes less than 4M! No wonder that Detroit is the best team in the League. OMG... Sammy has more points than Mule...

Even Sammy had more points.

Rags are doing it again! I hope they will add Bertuzzi for 4M, and trade for Lang.

I think that Dats is a steal. Look at Gomez, Drury, Spezza, B.Richards.

Our division is getting better...

Hossa is 29, and he has been putting up big numbers many years. Franzen is 28, and had great 6 months. So if we can get Marian, but have to loose Mule, then you do it! Imagine, if ATL would have accepted trade Franzen - Hossa.

Ducks have huge problems, but it wasn't that bad after their Cup in 2007. But since then they are going down, 'cos Brian Burke is the best GM in the league. How he has managed to do so much damage? 1. He his soft with Niedermayer & Selanne. Scotty should have decided by the 1st of July, or at least before August. Well... Teemu was UFA, so not much he could do. 2. He throws big bucks on Schneider & Big Bert. He really overpaid for these players. 3. Gives away Penner! Instead of matching 4.25M, he gives that money to injury-prone Bertuzzi. 4. Gives 6M deal to Giguere. Sure, he is a great goalie. But the Ducks had Bryzgalov, who proved his goodness in the playoffs. As the backup they had very good prospect Hiller. Ok, sign Giguere, but after that trade him! Burke just didn't have the guts to go with two younger goalies. But if you have such a good D it's worth the risk. 5. Burke gives away Bryzgalov for nothing! This is pathetic, you don't give away starting goalie for free. L.A., Tampa, Phoenix were probably ready to give at least something. 2nd Round pick at least (Huet price). 6. He trades McDonald, who was one of the best forwards in the playoffs. Why not to trade/waive Marchant, or Big Bert? Results: No Cap Space. Still waives Bertuzzi. Ducks still have strong D and goalies, but TOP6 is not impressive by any means. Is he really the GM, who should resurrect The Leafs? They better stuck with Fletcher. Top GM-s in the National Hockey League are Kenny Holland, Bob Gainey, and George McPhee. Brian Burke is not even close.

It's a possibility to trade Pronger for some young talent. This LA thing was just an example. Teams do trade their star players. Do you really believe that Pronger is clearly better than Scotty? Plus, this season Pronger wasn't 2nd best D in the NHL.

We have plenty of money to spend, Ducks don't. I can bet that Burke would die now to get couple of millions extra space. Bryzgalov is better than average: he has proven that. By the way... one of the reasons that we can afford our great D, and Dats + Z is that our goalies are cheap. Yeah lets trade Rafalski, 'cos we only need two great D's. You only need one great/very good goalie, but your top4 better be solid. So comparing Ducks situation with Rafalski-Kronner is very wrong. And please, don't compare Ducks with Canes and Oils. Very different teams, and problems. Ducks are still TOP4 team in the West.

Bertuzzi was his only major mistake in recent years. Burke has done 4-5 in the past year. If people say (not saying that on this board) that Burke is the best GM, then it's comparing him with Kenny, and other great GM's. So I'm not missing the point.

The point is that you just can't have the best players based on their skills. You have to think about salaries. Ducks still have strong team, but they are in trouble, 'cause they have no Cap Space. That is why combo Bryzgalov/Hiller is better, than Giguere/Hiller. Bryzgalov is cheaper, but not so much worse goalie than Giguere. Pronger trade is as I said crazy, but it has some logic. For example trade him for J.Johnson and O'Sullivan. This ain't bad. Btw, Chris Pronger is not second best Dman in the NHL. He is second best on his team (top 5 in the league). You are telling that Burke is one of the best. Based on what? One Cup? These biased people are delivering facts, and you just say he is one of the best. Don't get me wrong, I think Brian Burke is above-average GM (who had really brutal year), but not in the TOP5.

Some you are comparing Kenny, and Burke (a la Kenny makes mistakes too). Yes, Kenny made a mistake with Bertuzzi, but other than that he has been flawless in the past season. This is only one mistake, and 'cos of that we lost good prospect. Burke on the other hand has made several mistakes. As the result he is taking down his team. Bryzgalov case. I don't believe, that there were no offers. It's simple: you trade Bryzgalov, or go with him (read: trade Giguere). You DON'T give him away for free. Imagine... Kenny waives Howard. I have one crazy idea: trade Pronger for great proven prospect and picks. That move will free some Cap Space (Chris is not getting younger, and he hasn't been that impressive lately).

I don't understand Rags Management. They want to add Sundin, but they already have Gomez & Drury. Forwards C Gomez 7.357 C Drury 7.050 C Prucha 1.600 other 5 forwards with the Cap Hit around 0.600 So it's 8 forwards with the 18.880 Cap Hit Defencemen Tyutin 2.844 Backman 2.300 Girardi 1.550 Staal 0.827 4 guys take down 7.520 of money Goalies Lundqvist 6.875 Total Cap Hit 33.276 They have 23M to sign 5-6 forwards, 3 D-s and a goalie. They should try to get a guy like Campbell for 6.5-7M, plus Hossa for 7.5-8M. It's 15M for two players, that leaves 8M for everybody else. Two solid D for combined 3M. So it's 4 forwards for the 5M, two 0,5M guys, and two 1,5 - 1,7M guys. And a cheap goalie. It's seems that the Rags are in a very bad shape. They are not going to win the Cup, if Tyutin is their top D. Sundin is worth as much as Hossa, but he is C, and they have enough of that (Drury a third-line centre???). Damn it's good to be a Wing fan, 'cause they don't overpay for the players. Maybe Rags should tank it, and try to get Hedman next year...

Ovechkin - Crosby - Hossa... just an average line

This topic is just stupid. One thing that scares me, if the Caps would had picked Malkin over Ovechkin, then we would be facing Crosby + Ovechkin

This is pathetic. Whitney will never win Norris, 'cos after Nick you will have Dion Phaneuf, Jack Johnson, Duncan Keith etc. Whitney will never be as good as Phaneuf is right now. And please check your info: Gonchar is not a candidate this year. Norris nominees 2008: Lidstrom, Chara, Phaneuf. Plus, Rafalski is at least as good as Gonchar. Kronner and Stuart are better than Orpik, Whitney & Co. It seems that PIT has better D