Official: Weight traded to Ducks for Andy McDonald

[Guest GordieSid&Ted]

GS&T,

It doesn't matter if their defense increases right now, even if they managed to get their GAA up to 4 least in the league scoring 2 goals a game will not win them anything.

As I said long before and will continue to believe, replacing Neids with Schneid was unnecessary and should have been the second move he made, first should have been replacing Teemu. Teemu could have come back, but it would/will cost them money, Neids returning was basically free of charge. With the loss of Teemu and Penner they lost their numbers 1 and 3 offensive players, 2 being Neids.

The Duck need a top line scorer like it is their job, they don't need D nearly as much, in order to be a contender they will need to make another trade Schneids or O'Donnell and a prospect (probably need to be Ryan) for a top line scorer.

You would be surprised how much better the D would be if the O could score with some regularities, would give the D a nice boost of energy.

Don't get me wrong Opie, I don't think these have been spectacular moves by Burke, any of them. All i'm saying is that given the circumstances he was in I think he did a pretty good job. How many teams lost a Niedermayer and a Selanne? First and foremost nobody did. He had the spectre of those to gigantic holes to fill (potentially as both were somewhat coy about their futures) and then Penner up and gets nabbed as well. I'm not saying he should've signed Bertuzzi to what he did but IMHO it has no bearing on Penner. Burke had something in mind for Penner that had nothing to do with what he gave Bert. Then along comes Edmonton and gives Penner 2X to 3X what Burke probably had factored in.

Anyway, I think he's done the best he can with a terrible situation, not all of which is his doing. That's my opinion. Others think this is all his doing and is proof that he's a moron. I don't buy that. Those people are playing armchair QB way too much.

As for the Ducks offense. Give it a little time. They just added one of the most dynamic offensive weapons in the game in Niedermayer. He'll generate much offense for them just like Lidstrom does for us. The Ducks have guys who can score and a little boost from Niedermayer is all its gonna take IMO.

Here's a snapshot of their goals for and goals against prior to last night's game. Let's revisit this 20 games from Nieds return.

Record prior to Niedermayer

15-15-4

Goals for 85 (2.5/g)

Goals against 99 (2.91/g)

Record after Niedermayer

0-0-1

Goals for 1

Goals against 2

[Opie 308]

Don't get me wrong Opie, I don't think these have been spectacular moves by Burke, any of them. All i'm saying is that given the circumstances he was in I think he did a pretty good job. How many teams lost a Niedermayer and a Selanne? First and foremost nobody did. He had the spectre of those to gigantic holes to fill (potentially as both were somewhat coy about their futures) and then Penner up and gets nabbed as well. I'm not saying he should've signed Bertuzzi to what he did but IMHO it has no bearing on Penner. Burke had something in mind for Penner that had nothing to do with what he gave Bert. Then along comes Edmonton and gives Penner 2X to 3X what Burke probably had factored in.

Anyway, I think he's done the best he can with a terrible situation, not all of which is his doing. That's my opinion. Others think this is all his doing and is proof that he's a moron. I don't buy that. Those people are playing armchair QB way too much.

As for the Ducks offense. Give it a little time. They just added one of the most dynamic offensive weapons in the game in Niedermayer. He'll generate much offense for them just like Lidstrom does for us. The Ducks have guys who can score and a little boost from Niedermayer is all its gonna take IMO.

Here's a snapshot of their goals for and goals against prior to last night's game. Let's revisit this 20 games from Nieds return.

Record prior to Niedermayer

15-15-4

Goals for 85 (2.5/g)

Goals against 99 (2.91/g)

Record after Niedermayer

0-0-1

Goals for 1

Goals against 2

First off I agree he isn't a moron, but he does play the role pretty well. Also let me say I am not saying I could do better this is just my opinion of what he did.

Buffalo arguably lost more than Ana, when you consider what Ana had on D already and what they were able to get off of the UFA tree. And that Buffalo up and matched an offer sheet for a player. I like what Buffalo did, instead of going out and signing a guy like Bert (by that I mean an injury ? and aging), they have decided to play with what they have and then next year they will have over 10mil in cap space.

As for Neids being one of the most dynamic offensive weapons in the game (maybe for defenseman but not in the whole league), yeah when he had some one on offense to chip in. Last year his role was to set up Teemu, and help create ice for him or for another forward (MacDonald) when the lesser D from the other team was on the ice. Unfortunately for the duck, Neids will be needed in a scoring role, not a set up role. Assists is not what they will be looking for from him, he will need to put the biscuit in the basket, which I think he can do, just not at the rate ANA will need him to do it at.

Who do they have that can score, before you say Getzlaf or Perry, I mean who is going to be the guy on that team that puts up 40 goals and 50 assists for the 90+ points that Teemu was. Taking away that much offense hurts any team especially a team that has a steep drop off from last years scoring leader to this years.

The three losses Neids (temp obviously), Penner, and Selanne has got to be one of the tougher hits a team has taken in the offseason in a long, long time. But I think Burke could have handled it better, would the results have been the same, maybe, but it seems to me that he jumped the gun made a hurried decision to get Bert( I know he waited a bit, but he had wood for him from the start) and Schneids and should have looked for younger, more offensively talented forwards, He could have gotten a lot more than Bert for 4mil a year. And hell Ralf cost the wings barely more than Schneids, plus there were other forwards I would have looked to first.

I don't think he is a moron, he just seems to have a knee jerk reaction to everything. Like the offer sheet, like it or not it is a part of the game, you can't ***** about it (as a gm not you), it is like the salary cap, he may not like that either but it is there.

He seems to overreact to everything, whether that be the aforementioned Offer sheet, paying Bert, paying schneids. I think had he stepped back and looked over the market he might have found better more viable options. Same goes for his explosion over the offer sheet, he just made himself look like an ass by jumping aroudn screaming abouthow he now hates Kevin Lowe.

What is even worse is that he set himself up to have 14 free agents by the start of the 09/10 season. Included in that is his entire D (except Pronger) He has also left himself no cap room for the next two years. Unless Neids hangs them up for good.

Something I just thought of, how quickly will Burke replace Neids next year if he is contemplating retirement again? Does that cause him to miss out on a free agent, or does it cost him another player to an offer sheet because he has no room to sign them?

But as you pointed out this is all speculation and the only one(s) who really know what went down are Burke, Neids, Penner, and Lowe.

[irishtemper14+25 11]

well mcdonald is doing quite well in st louis...he has 1 goal and 1 assist in 1 game

[Guest GordieSid&Ted]

Opie,

I forgot about Buffalo they did lose alot. However, I think they are a bit of a different team than Anaheim. Both teams lost their top level scoring but I think Buffalo had more scoring depth. Roy, Pominville, Connolly, Vanek, Hecht, Kotalik, Afinogenov. They were a very potent offense to begin with so losing Drury and Briere, I don't think they had to necessarily go out and spend big time money like Burke did. Burke needed to do something whereas Buffalo felt it had good depth. They admitted they were going to count on those guys and weren't going to spend like mad. Plus, they never spend money like that (unless they have to match for Vanek )

Obviously Bertuzzi was a risky signing. What can I say, Burke loves his "own" guys who have played for him before. Still, I don't think he was going to pay Penner that kind of money anyway so Penner getting swept away really doesn't bother me. It'd be almost like having to re sign Flip and tomorrow we hear the Oilers signed him for 5 years and 18 million. We'd be like WTF! And we probably wouldn't blame Kenny for that. Well, some would because they'd assume he should've locked him up already. Easier said than done in today's market. Look what it took the Flyers to lock up Richards. They're paying him 5X what he got this season and they're doing it for 12 years. Bottom line, I don't blame him for Penner. He wasn't gonna give Penner that kind of dough.

As for Schneider, maybe he could've looked elsewhere or not signed anybody at all. But hey, we lost Matty and what did we do? Went out and spent big bucks on a replacement in Rafalski. I don't see why Burke's situation is any different. He did the same think Kenny did. Although Kenny didn't have Nick Lidstrom sitting in the backseat trying to figure out his future.

Enough with the past though.

They've got the best d in the league. That's a given. I'm not even going to debate that with anybody because it is the best.

Getzlaf is going to be the replacement for Teemu. He had 58 points last year. He's already got 36 and is on pace for 89 so although they didn't get another body, they're getting more bang for the buck out of him.

Perry had 17 goals last year. He's got 17 already this year. Perry had 44 points last season. If Perry can just stay at this pace he'll pot 30+ this year and tack on another 20-30 points from last year's total. Again they're getting more production out of another guy.

Chris Kunitz had 25 goals last year. He's got 11 now, right on pace for 25 again.

They've added Weight and Bertuzzi. It's not Teemu and MacDonald but it does help offset some of those losses.

They got Niedermayer back so the addition of Schnieder, who has 16 points in only 20 games for them is an added bonus to help offset some of the scoring loss.

And they still have Pronger.

From last season they are down more than a 1/2 goal per game. AND, they're giving up about 1/3 more goals per game. They aren't going to outscore last year's squad. That's a given. But, if Niedermayer can add some punch to their offense and help get their goals against back down to what they had last year, there's no reason why they won't win their fair share of games and then it'll be playoff time. They may not be pretty, but last year they featured guys like Moen, May and Thornton and they still beat us. IMO, we've never, ever lost a playoff series to a more talented team (maybe some Aves squads), but we have lost plenty against big, strong, tough teams and IMO, that's what Burke likes to build and that's still what he's got in Anaheim.