tomh009

That is one upgrade from Taffoli Toffoli to be sure!

And that it's not a one- or two-year retool: otherwise Toffoli might have been a key part of that.

Yes ... there are really four rough categories ... Need to trade, somehow or someway Want to trade at some kind of reasonable return Willing to trade if the return is even better than the anticipated future value Not willing to trade because the player is critical for the future Most of the players will be somewhere in the two middle groups.

I think the Lehkonen reference stems from him being a two-way forward.

Not optimistic. It's just reality: no one knows yet how good he will be. Not the people who believe he is bottom-six at best, not the people who think he can be better than that. Predicting is hard, especially about the future.

He's only 20. Some people think he can only do bottom-six, other people think his ceiling is higher. But he's still just a prospect, no one actually knows, there is no absolute truth.

I quite liked this bit from the Athletic article:

Maybe some GM out there has his heart set on getting a Clydesdale D-man!

At $4.5M for only two more years, Hoffman's contract is not ridiculous though agree not as friendly. I think they can find a buyer, they could always take another contract in return.

Middle 6 is a realistic hope, I think -- not expectation since he hasn't even played in the AHL yet.

We could even retain half his salary for the rest of the season ...

Because one of them will move up to 12th? We're one top-six forward down with this transaction.

Yes, that, too, was an issue, though I would argue a separate one.

Ducharme would not have been the one choosing the Clydesdale D option, though.

Toffoli is about to turn 30, and would probably be 33 or so by the time we are ready to contend. And by that time he would have probably wanted another 4+ year contract. So, yeah, this is not a one or two-year reset.

Not sure I'd classify the elder Pitlick as a prospect any more, at age 30 ...

So will I. And I expect that Suzuki will,too.

At this point, the only benefit from Price playing this season would be for him to get ready for the next season.

The trouble with single-game faceoff stats is that line matching really skews the numbers.

How big an operation does he need?

Quite. But this season's production, on a pitifully bad team, and injuries aside, at least indicates that he may be over the mental health issues that he has suffered with for the past few years.

Poulin made 38 saves on 39 shots and has his save percentage up to .918 now. It's going to get crowded in Laval once McNiven is back, let alone Allen.

51-point pace this year! My personal expectation is that he'll be in the Habs' lineup next year as well. Whether St Louis can extract more from him -- he certainly should have the tools for that -- remains to be seen.

And they even got good goaltending.

It appears that McNiven has been skating again. Is there any word on when he might be ready to play? I'd really like to see Primeau back in Laval to rebuild his confidence.