dirtydangles

It blows my mind to imagine how much better this team would be with Nyquist and Brunner over Sammy, Cleary, Tootoo

Nah - we need to break in some prospects sooner than later to avoid another nyquist fiasco.

This is what I'd like. I think XO will be ready to go after this year and be a little more cap friendly. Also not sure about Mrazek as a backup just yet (not great for his development). I'm not an Andersson fan - I think we could see him moved this season at some point to make room for Nyquist.

I'd LOVE to see a "WE WANT NYQUIST" chant at the Joe to go along with the Boos. Holland needs to hear that this is unacceptable.

There will be a segment where holland sits at his computer and scrolls through players on the trade market saying "too expensive...not soft enough...scores too many goals..."

Holland will give him 5mill for being a lifelong wing - just like he went soft re-signing clearly (edit: of course clears wasn't a lifelong wing).

What is with this fascination to have Alfie as a Dman? Makes no sense. Following the logic of "he is a vet player with good d instincts" we should have Datsyuk and Z back there too. Being a Dman is a lot about positioning around the net and using your body effectively (things alfie hasn't had to do in his extensive career). He would get destroyed back there.

I'd be open to trading Andersson as well. We have Sheahan who can step into a bottom 6 centre spot. In a year or two we will see Jarnkrok up too. I would say Andersson is a good player - but lacks high end speed which limits him offensively. I believe that Sheahan can be more effective at the NHL level and I would argue that speed is very important to have as a bottom 6 centre. Andersson could be sent to a team starving for centres as part of a package for a dman or maybe return a lower round pick (which we could use to trade for upgrades elsewhere). I just don't see Andersson progressing much further than he has.

No thanks. He is not the type of player this team needs at that cap hit. We would have to give up major assets to get him and then pay more to dump cap on calgary in addition. Unless we can get him on the cheapest of cheap I'd be furious.

I'd think we would move our 1st in there rather than Smith

This indecisiveness is Babs' fault. When Smith wasn't chained to his blue line in GR he was a far more composed player.

I honestly wouldn't be surprised if Holland's solution was to go out and get a shootout specialist (who can't do anything else) like Omark or a 40 year old version and use it as an excuse to say he "made the team better"

Having stay at home guys on every pair is a bit overrated. We play puck possession style (or we try to) and its far better to have good puck movers to do this than rugged solid dmen. We had Rafalski and Lids together and neither were stay at home by any means and look how great that turned out. This is an ideal situation albeit, but I just think we can use some more firepower from the D considering we aren't getting much production out of our D like we did before. The Coyotes actually have the highest scoring D in the league. Kulikov also plays with an edge which is nice. Girardi would be the "safe" bet considering his play is pretty steady considering his style (not really offensively minded).

If I were Holland I'd look into packaging our 2013 1st round pick + Pulks/Almquist + Quincey and see if we can nab a pending UFA/RFA like Girardi or Kulikov. Realistically Holland NEVER trades roster players (for loyalty or something?).

Tatar played great tonight. Babs needs to F off with benching him.

Should put sammy in the shootout - at least the goalie will have to make a save and there's always the chance that he slips and falls and his logo changes position and sammy scores.

his last THREE

Dats needs to stop going first until he gets his mojo back

after ANOTHER OT loss you gotta think its about time Holland tries to do something to improve this team. They seem to be maxing out at OT losses.

Alfie must have tweaked something. That - or he told babs that his lineup is wack.

I will find a cleary jersey and burn it for a win tonight. I'm sure Babs would sacrifice Tatar for a win tonight.

I'd think Ericsson won't make any more than Kronwall. Furthermore, I do see Alfie returning. We can't afford to pay more than 1mill for a backup with Howard making so much (it doesn't make any sense). So even if the cap doesn't go up I think we can probably have around 7mill for a Vanek/Gaborik.

When you're done with that beard can I use the clippings to make a toupee?

Kulikov/Del Zotto/Girardi at the right price would be something I would look into if I were GM of the Detroit Red Wings. Holland is probably in talks with Brett Lebda over a 5 year deal instead.