kipwinger

A 29 year old Mike Green is too old to help us, but a 31 year old Johnny Boychuk isn't? Do you have a fever?

Having a right shot on that bottom pair directly contributed to Smith's goal. Marchenko made a play at the line to keep the puck in, and chipped in in deep on his forehand (something a lefty couldn't do) to Jurco who found Smith in good position for the one timer (something he couldn't have done if he'd been on the other side). Good work by all involved, but having the right/left pair out there was a huge key to that goal.

I don't disagree with your points. But I will say that neither Smith nor Dekeyser are prospects.

Fair enough. I just thought I missed a tweet or something. The news was coming fast and furious for a minute.

Am I missing something? Did he get picked up off waivers already? How did we lose Lashoff?

Holland has consistently refused to trade highly touted prospects and high draft picks. He's repeated his mantra of "building from within" soooo often that I've wanted to punch him. Presumably he has this point of view because he believes it's the right way to build and team. And what do you know, it's paying off. Not really sure how you can be critical of him right now? And if the roster management (and it's current successes) aren't attributable to Holland, who does get the credit? Luck? Babcock? Dan Cleary?

I will say this. Good on Brian Lashoff. I'm really glad that guy is a million dollars richer. Sure he was a plug. But he did EXACTLY what he was signed to do, and what was expected of him. Kudos buddy.

I'm not really sure why we'd trade and NHL ready righty to get an NHL righty. My guess is, they want to see if Marchenko is good enough to hold his own on the third pair if they move one or two of the lefties who are higher up in the depth chart. I'm thinking of Quincey, Smith, or Ouellet are the more likely trade scenarios.

Holy s***! You know what this means? We've finally got a right shot defenseman! Also, this means Smith will get to play his natural side. That should be a good way to boost his production.

Wait, what? I'm confused. So, is Lashoff waived or not? I think he's saying that Lashoff is waived AND Ouellet went down for Marchenko, but I don't know.

Haha, it was a shorty too. Hilarious.

You're right, but I think he's probably not taking it for granted that Cleary is going to retire. You are...probably correctly.

To be fair, I do think we need to have a little bit more consistency in our efforts against good teams. However, if your assessment is accurate, then it sounds like we had a good effort...and Mrazek just had a bad night. If you've got to take a loss, that's the best kind to take.

I still don't like Quincey's contact. He's played much better and all that, but he's still overpaid. By a lot. As far as Cleary, I kinda don't care about them re-signing him this year. Whatever, let him play out one more year as the 13th forward and retire a Wing. I hated last year's signing though, but those circumstances were different. Either way, my point in bringing them up was just to say that while I thought Kenny was making questionable moves because he was washed up, he was really just putting bandaids on the problem until the kids could take over. Which has always been his stated strategy, but which I thought was a bad idea...until I saw how good they were. So, long story short, if Kenny moves a prospect or two for a veteran, I'll assume those prospects weren't 100% necessary. Because it's not like he doesn't know what good prospects look like. And if he doesn't, then I'll assume we've already got whatever we need in our system.

Wait, you mean our rookie, third string, goalie had a bad game against the best offensive team in the league? What a bum! In all seriousness, I'm glad to hear it. Obviously, looking at the score it seemed like one of those games where we just looked retarded for 60 minutes. If the team played well, and Peter was just off, oh well. Obviously I'd like to see them win, but over the course of an 82 games season you're going to lose some games. If that's the case, I'd rather they lose because one guy has a bad game than because 20 guys did.

I bitched about the Tootoo, Sammy, Cleary, Quincey, etc. signings, trades, and re-signs. I was convinced that Holland was past it and didn't have any fresh ideas. Apparently he knew a little bit more than I did just how good his prospects were. Now our team is pretty legit. And we're certainly positioned to be VERY good in the next couple of years. So I've got to admit I was 100% wrong about Holland. At this point, when it comes to building a team, developing players, or acquiring talent, I'm going to defer to the guy who's got four Stanley Cup rings sitting on his mantle.

You said it yourself. Nestrasil was waived because he couldn't beat out Jurco (a guy with minor league options). Not because there was no room for him. If he'd been good enough to keep, Jurco would have gone down. If there's one thing you can say for Ken Holland, it's that he almost never lets an asset go for nothing. Hence, we've still got Kindl on this team. Nestrasil, Almquist, Emmerton, Mursak, etc. all had opportunities to play their way onto the team. If they didn't stick, it's because they weren't better than their competition (Jurco, Kindl, Glendening, Miller/Eaves/Andersson). When Ken Holland loses a player that he really wants to keep, I'll be happy to acknowledge it. But as of now, he's only losing guys who can't hack it.

So, I didn't have a chance to watch this one last night. What the hell happened?

That's a little bit like saying, "I don't want to offer up Nyquist in a trade, so I'd rather offer up Tatar or Andersson". They're not comparable, and depending on which you offer, it dramatically changes the make up of the package you're offering and the return you expect to get. That's why I think you're missing the mark here. Because you're saying that in an effort to avoid losing our best prospect, you'd rather lose a really good prospect...or a really bad prospect. I don't get why you've made those your options?

Which prospect did we lose due to roster overcrowding?

So switch it to Smith, Larkin, and a 1st. I'd still do it. And it's a more realistic possibility.

You said it would take two roster players (Smith and Helm), plus Larkin. I'm disagreeing. I'm saying it will take less. One roster player, one prospect, and one pick. That's what I've been saying all long.

I wasn't avoiding the first part of your last post. I misunderstood what you meant by "non roater player". Typically when people say "non roster player" it means a depth player or prospect. When then mean a pick, they say pick. A good roster player (Helm), and high end prospect (Larkin), and a 1st round pick will get you a very good player on an expiring contract. Two roster players, a first rate prospect, and a first round pick is a lot. And I'm not sure why you think that's what it would take to get O'Reilly when other comparable players have gone for less.

Where do you get your information about the value of our prospects from? I'm not saying that to be a jerk, I really want to know. Because Frk and AA aren't even close to having the same value in a package. Athanasiou is probably VERY close to untouchable. He's the best center prospect we've got, and prior to his injury was beginning to maul AHL competitions after only 15 games as a pro. By game 25 (his injury) he was eating teams up. Frk...on the other hand, can't even stay in the lineup. Sometimes I think you add guys to packages for no other reason than you're not familiar with them. Then, once you are, you'd never trade them in a million years.

The smart move is somewhere in the middle though right? I mean, I get that it's good to be patient and build a contender. But at some point, you've got to decide now's the time, and try to win. Always looking toward the future obscures the fact that (pardon this goofy description) the present was the future at one point. What's all this saving, and developing, and patience working toward if not to make a Cup run? And as far as I know, no team (in the modern era) has done that with 100% homegrown pieces. Chicago, Los Angeles, Boston...all had significant help from outside. If you're not willing to move pieces for guys like Yandle, or O'Reilly, or Spezza, or Kesler, etc. when they become available, exactly what are you willing to move them for? And if the answer is "nothing", you're in trouble. Because, as I said, nobody has ever managed to win that way yet.