Feldmarschall

I know it's such a small sample size and Elliott hasn't proven anything yet, but he's 15-5-1 with a .937 SV and 1.68 GAA. That gets only a 2 year, $1.8M cap hit?

Elliot must have the worst agent in the world. Either that, or both sides think Elliott's numbers will come back to Earth soon.

Yeah, his poor performances in the past are undoubtedly staining his value. His percentage and GAA from last year were absolutely brutal. Even in his best season he only pulled a .909, which is still pretty poor by NHL standards. If he maintains this performance over the course of this two year deal, though, he will seriously cash in.

That's good stuff. Everybody watches Pavel. Too bad he hasn't had many highlight moments this season.

I'm starting to think that maybe blueadams wrote the article.

Nonsense. There's not a single attempt at guessing what the lines will look like.

You're spot on for the rest, though. That is one talentless writer.

The lack of respect for Miller and Bertuzzi astounds me. These claims that Bert can't handle second-line ice are 100% bulls***. The guy outscored Homer and Flip. He produces about a point every other game on average. That's what you expect from a mid-level second-liner. He was also one of the hardest working defensive forwards we saw, five-on-five, and got props from Babs for it on a few occasions. He's a good player. Same with Miller. He's unspectacular but he's effective at what he does and he works his ass off on the defensive side of the puck.

Sometimes a team adds by subtraction. Losing Drapes, Modano, and hopefully Hudler, the forward corps loses a couple of its softest forwards and another whose job was replaced by Helm long ago. Equally true on defense. It cannot be said that Rafalski wasn't a defensive liability at even strength. He was just too easy to muscle off the puck. Period. And the back end still has people that can generate offense, even if a big trade doesn't come down. Lidstrom and Kronwall are elite, offensively. Stuart is capable if he gets back into the swing of acting like the defenseman he was in SJ and Boston. Ericsson and Kindl have considerable untapped offensive ability as well. It's all about improvement from within. This team's got a big pile of guys in their twenties right now. If they get better, the team will do fine. If they regress, the team will suffer.

At the very least, subtracting its two softest forwards and its softest defensemen, the team will be tougher to play against, even if it's a bit of a loss with respect to top-end skill. I like the change.

When they were originally scouting Datsyuk and evaluating him as a potential NHLer, the bow-legged comments popped up pretty regularly. I know at one point someone (Jim Nill?) referred to him as a "little pigeon-toed kid that the puck followed around."