MacK_Attack

Leafs don't have Staffan Kronwall anymore, Washington does. Plus I believe that Staffan will be a Group VI UFA this summer, anyways. Leafs have no room for defence as it is. They need forwards. Leafs already have the following defencemen for next year: - Tomas Kaberle - Luke Schenn - Pavel Kubina - Mike Van Ryn (for the 15 games that he's healthy) - Jeff Finger - Ian White - Phil Oreskovic - Jonas Frogren - Anton Stralman

I doubt you'd be able to move Stuart without taking salary back. That's the reality, especially with the cap uncertainty after next season.

Yeah.....Hartley is pretty well the only guy out there that fits both criterion of having NHL experience and French-speaking.

Doesn't have to be a francophone, but does have to be able to speak French. That limits it to....francophones.

I didn't mean that he'd get gooned for that specific celebration, but I think one day he's going to take it overboard and somebody is going to react poorly.

Oh yes he will. He'll tear him apart. I think also because Ovechkin played this whole celebration up because of Don Cherry. Grapes will probably re-iterate that somebody will "Turgeon" him sooner or later.....which I tend to agree with.

Don Cherry is going to blow a gasket tomorrow night when he talks about Ovechkin's celebration.

You're using a personal bias to try and argue that a player is or isn't good. That isn't credible at all. I really hate to get into this again, but Crosby is the most complete hockey player in the world. Anyways, Alfredsson is on that slippery slope downward in his career. Not nearly as effective as he once was. Canada will be able to ice a roster that's has depth beyond imagination. Guys like Vinny Lecavalier, Getzlaf, Heatley, Spezza, St. Louis, Savard, Morrow, Nash, Carter, Staal, Richards (Mike), Doan, Marleau, Little are all better than most teams can muster up on the top lines, and a handful of those I just listed will have to be left off the team. That's not even getting into the old guard of guys like Ryan Smyth, Sakic, Gagne.

Iginla - Crosby - Thornton That comes close. Maybe not quite as good, but close.

Not a chance that will happen because the players will want their salaries to go up accordingly every time the cap goes up and the owners won't do that. There's no way the players would agree to having their salaries drop if the cap goes down, but stay the same if the cap goes up. That's just a tug-o-war that neither side would win.

I'll definitely be watching Coach's Corner on Saturday. Grapes loves Savard.

Perhaps their members who will get shafted this summer and next (when they have to take cheap, short contracts) will force them to give a bit on the contract length issue. Maybe it will have to be a trade-off....I know the league wants to have some sort of non-guaranteed contracts, but maybe they compromise somewhere in there and they restrict contract length at the expense of keeping guaranteed contracts. It'll be Paul Kelly's first CBA, so I'm sure he'll have to put up a fight.

Nope, I said some GM's, not all of them. It just means he has lousy luck when it comes to when his top players (read Zetterberg, Franzen etc.) came up for their big contracts. Detroit's not in the trouble that a team like Philly or the Rangers will be in. Philly already has $53.9 million committed to next season, and $43 million to nine players in 2010/11. It's going to completely reverse the tables in 2010. The teams with lots of cap space are going to get free agents dirt cheap and will be able to essentially buy players off of other teams who need to cut their cap numbers. The next CBA will definitely restrict contract terms, I have no doubt about that.

But it's a cap linked directly to revenues. If your revenue is down, they can't allow teams to spend above the percentage paid to the players. That violates the whole spirit of the agreement. I don't buy the whole argument that you can't plan for the long term with a dropping cap. Teams need to be responsible with the terms they are handing out. The 7+ year contracts (for the most part) were done with very little long-term planning. You will likely see in the next CBA a restriction on the length of contracts. It's going to be very interesting to see how teams get under the cap in 2010/11. I think you'll see a lot of good players forced to stick it out in the AHL, as well as a lot of re-entry waiver action. But hey, there's bound to be a price to pay when you're a wreckless as some GM's have been regarding free agency these last couple summers.

The NHL sacrificed a season to get a hard cap, I doubt they'll give it up or make any major changes to it after one CBA.

Nah, it's been 9 years. I'm over it from a Leafs perspective. But I'm sure there's more than a few people defending Hossa because he's a Wing. It's just not right that players are protected by the rulebook when they're as careless as Hossa was on that play. I had to have a look at the tape one more time. Hossa indeed did not touch the puck, it was swept away by Mats Sundin and the puck was probably 6-8 feet away from Hossa when he struck Berard. It wasn't even close. Can you call it the follow-through of a shot when in fact there was no shot? That should not be a legal play. I know it was a freak accident, but there has to be some measure of responsibility on plays like that.

Finger has played pretty well for the Leafs. I don't mind him. He's the kind of guy Burke likes...goes into the corners, blocks shots, kills penalties. Never does anything flashy, but never does anything dumb. The last thing Burke has right now is a cap problem.

Burke's proposal is to actually allow teams to trade eat a small amount cap space in a trade.

I don't know that you'd be able to move him without taking a contract back. The fact that he's signed through the cap crisis that's coming in 2010 makes him tough to move. Teams are terrified of acquiring contracts with terms past next season right now.

I have a VHS copy of that game. I had to dig it out to watch it again when this topic was brought up. Hossa missed the puck or barely got a piece of it. He was trying to put it on goal, but the puck went far to his left after he swung at it. From what I could tell, he had been on the ice for 25-30 seconds, so I doubt he was trying to get a line change, but I suppose it's possible. Still there's nothing to prove that because Hossa stopped as soon as he hit Berard. I never said it was a penalty. I said it was careless use of a stick while trying to take a needless shot...or whatever he was trying to do while taking that wild swing at the puck. The reason he missed the puck was because he took such a wild, careless swing at it. The reason his stick came up so high was because he took such a wild, careless swing at the puck. A normal follow-through from a normal shot should not come near another players face (at least if that player is totally upright), but rather in the mid-section area. Under the rules, there's nothing wrong with that play, but there should be. Guys shouldn't be protected by the rules if they're using their sticks to take wild swings at the puck like that. It's careless and irresponsible and Bryan Berard paid the consequences for it.

No love for Johnny Bower, apparently.

How many slapshot follow-throughs come up to eye height? None that I can think of. The reason it didn't hit Berard in the chin is because it was a careless flail of the stick by Hossa in an attempt to do whatever he was trying to do, but missed the puck. There's no evidence he was going for a line change. You're making excuses for him.

Except Hossa missed the puck. Absolutely there is fault on Hossa's part. He took a wild, useless flail at that puck. He didn't "rip" a slapshot. I have the game on tape with much better clarity, and he turned and flailed at the puck and barely got a piece of it, if at all, as you'll notice the puck when squirting off to the other corner. Perhaps not a penalty by the rulebook, but it was a dumb, careless shot to attempt. He had no control of his stick.

And their supposed "favourite" team - the Leafs - are 28th, despite pulling off some decent games lately.

It's just to piss you off. Besides, if you read at the bottom, it's not a ranking of the teams play solely since the last update, but more a compilation of various statistics and other secret formulas. http://www.tsn.ca/fantasy_news/feature/?ID=549