wings4thecup06

Well now, this is going to be a fun few days is it not?

Apparently due to personal issues not cap clearing exercise…interesting. Sarah McLellan ‏@azc_mclellan 13m Maloney said this move was purely about behavioral issues and not cost-saving move. Ribeiro has been seeking help this summer, Maloney said. Sounds like he's realised they need to blow it all up and start over. Gillis left it in a horrendous state. They had 2 franchise goalies and lost both of them because of how badly the situation was managed. The return they got is either unproven (Markstrom) or still developing (Horat). Interesting to see if he can move Edler.

I think this summarises the entire Kesler saga pretty well: http://www.thehockeynews.com/blog/canucks-were-doomed-to-be-fleeced-on-ryan-kesler-trade-from-the-start/ I don't think it's even because of the pieces that were dealt, but if you take a step back and look at what Benning had to work with and how truly disadvantaged he was from the start, I think he's done pretty well. Time will tell though I guess

I haven't seen a lot of Verlander recently, but something's just not quite right. I still believe that when he puts it all back together he'll get back to at least being a 3.2 ERA pitcher. Right now his FIP is 0.7 lower than his ERA, so it'll come down eventually. he just needs to string a couple together and get it together.

I agree on Weiss, I think he'll be chomping at the bit to get after everyone after he signed that contract last summer. What would you sign Niskanen to? 6 years too long? He's a good defensemen, but what has me on the fence is whether or not he's worth that kind of value, or whether he's been inflated by the fact that he's the best FA D man this year, and he was playing in a system where he was feeding pucks to 2 of the best players in the game today.

I think I'd be ok with it as long as the cap hit was around $5m, even if he gets 6 years. Anything over that creates an elephant that is really difficult to move.

Probably, but at the end of the day its still a rumour. Might have been leaked by someone from Canucks management to generate a bidding war between the Hawks and Ducks?

Meh. Who cares anyway, it's not like we were going to get him and just because he shunned us doesn't make a difference. He can go and join the *****bag Perry and they can be bum chums together.

True. We'd don't know how the Wings would actually feel about Kesler himself as a player. Still, I'm not pissed because it didn't look like we were in the running anyway, and it's not like he went to the Leafs say.

None of the players do actually live downtown do they? Most of them live out in the suburbs, as far as I could tell. Still, we'll never know I guess unless Kesler comes out and says he didn't want to go to Detroit.

Who says he's been lazy? I think we will never be able to gauge the 'level of interest', but the fact that there's been rumours and buzz about it should be enough to say that he's definitely making an effort to upgrade the team without trying to mortgage the future.

I really don't see this as an issue. All you folks who want KH to just make a move for the sake of it, then you're not going to get it. At the end of the day he's right, there are several of those guys who are being asked for in trades that will become the core of our team, and they'll be even more important to this teams future success when D/Z retire etc. So why get rid of most of them just for 1 or 2 better players who might give you 2 good years and then leave via free agency, when we could add pieces like them down the line when our kids are the leaders of this team? Everyone wants to win now, sure, but if we wait a little longer we'll be a much much stronger team, without having to give up all those assets in the first place.

is it me, or does this not seem like a great deal for the Ducks to give up? I mean, if this was all that Anaheim had to part with, then why the hell has this whole thing taken so long? Unless of course Anaheim are bargaining that Kesler could just walk away in 2 years time.

Not to drift off too much here, but can you imagine if we'd kept onto Hossa and then had Suter on the back end?

Until we actually hear anything genuine, then it really is all just speculation but it's exciting to think about nonetheless. I wonder if the Canucks would prefer trading Kesler to an Eastern Conference team so they don't have to face Kesler so much. Tatar + Ouellet + 1st? Fair deal do we think? I could live with that I reckon.

Kesler for Tatar and a 1st? Is it just mean or does that actually seem like a bit low?

Exactly. Which means that Kindl is probably expendable and part of any deal we make, along with a young guy from GR.

True, and I'd love to see Jurco stay with the big club this season. But would another year in GR as the first call up be a bad thing for him if we ended up with both Alfie and Iginla?

I'd be quite happy if Gilbert signs and that's all we do on the back end. By all accounts he had an excellent season on Florida's top pairing that has largely gone unnoticed it seems, because everyone is too focused on Niskanen and Boyle.

I think perhaps what the issue with there being a biased opinion against KH is that we will probably never truly know what offers he makes, what trades he actually tries to make, and how close he has been in the past to signing guys (like Suter) to actually keep this team rolling along. If Weiss was all KH could end up with last offseason, then he had to take him right? Because we'd just lost our 2C in Fil so that hole needed plugging. Would I like KH to make 1 or 2 moves to bring in some better players to help compliment our lineup? Sure. But I think we're all a little too quick to judge when we don't see what we like, because at the end of the day there's 29 other teams out there who are trying to do the same thing.

I think Alfie brings that shoot first mentality too, but Iginla would add size and grit to our lineup most definitely. I would take both if I could.

So we should sign a big name free agent even if he's not worth it just for the hell of it? Ok then.

Sooooo, Kovalchuk??

I agree about the lockouts. But do you think that its a problem that salaries are constantly escalating? I mean, obviously its good that good, hard working players get rewarded, but isn't it getting a bit ridiculous?

I actually can't wait to see what happens when Pulkkinen and Sproul come up full time, just purely because of the entertainment it will provide when on the PP. You guys are right, we need something like that on a full time basis. I'm just hoping we don't have to wait too long for them. But that's part of why I like bringing Alfie back - he's got a great one timer but it felt like the second half of the year he wasn't' using it as much.