dirtydangles

Can we just buyout sammy already?

I would almost expect vanek for that much.

You lost me at Stafford. You would give all that for STAFFORD? You have got to be kidding me. I wouldnt give Frk alone for him let alone a great centre prospect a 3rd rounder AND Franzen?

What Lemieux did was far worse than spraying the goalie. But I agree - we are talking about degrees to which people deserve things and that is a tough thing to do. You can't alter the degree to which someone is charged criminally - they either are or they aren't and that is the issue.

I'd love to move up into the top 8-10 but I just don't see us taking that risk. I think that getting into the top 5 is like a 0.01% chance of happening - and if it did we would all be pissed at what we gave up. We really don't need to trade down. We have almost filled GR with top prospects and we don't really need more quantity at this point.

Ideally we would only Amnesty Sammy (if not tradeable) and use best trades available for Tootoo and Cola to open up roster space. I would then Amnesty Franzen at the end of next year as our youth really comes of age. We can't afford to keep both him and Z long term on the books.

2001 was a huge miss. No brainer. Even though there were misses on better players in other years - overall 2001 was poor.

Ummmm I love the quote "the criminal justice system should have no place in hockey" - try telling that to the Moore family and Bertuzzi... maybe this defence lawyer could have got big Bert off.

Blum would be a nice option if the Preds shop his rights. He is a young RHD. We could send back Filppula's rights (they could use a center of his quality) and some picks? Thoughts?

Crawford got snubbed in favour of Kane. Crawford, Kane, Toews will all need heft raises in a couple years. Its gonna be a very tight squeeze to keep depth around. You almost need at least 2 players on ELC playing at high levels to stay cap compliant these days.

Marchand but without the diving

I love this for the new NHL. You have to qualify for certain licenses to do things! We could get hitting licenses and players must pass a course but the license can be taken away if an illegal hit is given for 30 days.

Guys I think The Axe is actually Emmerton... We should be nice.

I call bulls*** on this one. Aves are posturing to suggest that teams in the 2-4 slots need to trade up to get their guy (most are looking for forwards). Aves dream scenario would be trade down to No.2 and take Jones there plus the assets they get in the trade. Also the NHL loves to have curiosity surrounding the draft so I can see them just hyping up a pick that seemed a forgone conclusion.

This place better be tops in the nhl or else id rather have the joe ten times out of ten.

No way we get briere. Doesnt make sense for him as a father or us with our cap/roster overload. I can see him going to a NY team on a one year deal.

Domi is a unique skill/all-heart guy that can agitate other teams as well. These guys are the ones you hate on any other team than your own. Id love him if he fell to us. He may not be a big kid but he plays big.

Its a team sport - individuals should not decide the fate of the game at the end. It favours teams that are built on skill rather than grittiness and teams that have amazing goaltenders rather than great team defense to prevent goals. I bet you could use stats and predict fairly effectively the efficiency of teams in shootouts.

I don't think we could pass on him if he fell to us. The only reason he could fall would be the size factor - everything else is there. Gauthier might not be able to produce at the NHL level looking at his current numbers.

I like our current cap situation. After this 2013-2014 season we have a very thinned out cap sheet (no old ineffective players) that can be filled out well with our prospects which should be more than ready by that point. We can use our amnesty buyouts this year to make room for a couple deserving youngsters (Tatar, Nyquist, Deke) and then add a few more the following years when contracts expire. We obviously need to give big E a bit of a raise next season and our young guys will see small raises this season. As much as I hated the deals holland made last offseason I can see that they were insurance deals that don't hurt us in the long-run.

THIS. My thoughts exactly. We already have some vets signed like bert and sammy so we cant really do this without buyouts or leaving the kids out another year.

I don't think its fair to eliminate Domi from consideration based on size alone. If you are worried about raising our net team size we can do that with other picks. You just got to go best talent available and if he is the best there then I'm all for it. He could be one of those unique talents despite his size in the nhl for all we know. EDIT: his type 1 diabetes is a bit of a risk though.

Brunner WANTS to be a better player and you can see that as he is developing his game to try to be more helpful defensively. You can't say that about all wings players.

I'm not saying I want those guys - but thats what we said last year and then slowly but surely teams re-signed all their good ufa talent over the year and then its slim pickings. I'm waiting for our youth to break out - not holding my breath for ufas.

I'd love to get letang via trade - im not sure if they can make it work cap wise.