saskhab

The cap rate is finite every year, though. If the market for Ruutu effects Kostitsyn's pricetag, you have to be able to find value somewhere else on the roster. Because in every fixed overall market, there is value to be had. We may have to pay Emelin and Diaz fair value this next season (they were this year's bargains) and replace Kostitsyn with the bargain value player. I like AK46, I think he can be fit in the roster, but we have to remember that whoever was a value guy for us one year may not be the next.

You guys wouldn't have traded a d-man that is one of the worst defensively in the entire NHL and signed to a horrid contract and a first round pick for a 30 goal centre? Seriously, JJ is worse than Brisebois was in his prime. He made every d-man on the Kings worse. I'm not exaggerating, every regular d-man's +/- on the Kings was worse with Johnson as their partner than without him. For over two years. Benoit Pouliot was a better draft pick than Jack Johnson. Except that JJ netted Carolina Tim Gleason, who is much better than Jack Johnson. JJ is M-A Bergeron with size and draft pedigree. He lacks any kind of hockey sense, he has no idea where to go on the ice. Even Dean Lombardi, his GM, said this about JJ two years ago. He signed him thinking he had improved (but really because he put up big PP points last year), and he's been awful all around this year. His -12 on the Kings would likely be a -30 on the Blue Jackets, and he's not even facing the toughest competition (Mitchell and Doughty do). Getting rid of Johnson and that insane salary he had will help the Kings as much as adding Carter will. Scott Howson has, with the last two trades he made, stolen the title of worst GM in hockey from Steve Tambellini and taken a massive lead. Columbus will finish in the bottom 3-5 for the next four or five years. And I predict they won't be in Columbus anymore by then.

Grigorenko playing through the ankle injury which looked horrific at the WJCs is all you need to know about his heart. And quite frankly, all you need to know about his play right now. There's no way he's fully recovered from that. I'm more concerned he isn't getting proper medical attention for it.

He'd be an interesting personality for a Head Coach, not a lot of downright hilarious coaches out there.

No way is Kostitsyn out of shape. Did you not see the pictures of that guy out of training camp? Man looked like he could pull a jet around that torseau. He may be some of the things people accuse him of being, but in no way is Kostitsyn in bad shape. Honestly, unless he gets a lot more than a 2nd, there is no point in moving him at all.

Unless PG has massive plans to put in a big deal for Hemsky this seems like a dumb idea. This team really needs its skilled wingers and it's already taken a significant hit this year in that department already. I'm perfectly fine with keeping Moen. I am getting really sick of keeping our team's future in the current GM and coach's hands for the next few weeks or months, though. Any move has too much of a stench to it.

I was looking at WHL stats... Tim Bozon has more goals at even strength than a lot of the WHL's best goal scorers, including 50 goal man Ty Rattie, top Oil Kings scorer Michael St. Croix, and WJC star Mark Stone. Bozon only has five PP goals so far... he's sitting on Kamloops' 2nd PP unit and it is affecting his numbers compared to his competition (like Coda Gordon of Swift Current, who has over half his goals on the PP). He could easily be a better goal scorer than the rest of the junior field outside of the absolute top guys (Yakupov, Grigorenko), IMO.

Jack is sticking up for his buddies in the press here. I honestly don't care if their job is easy or not. I don't know why any fan honestly should care, especially since they generally do a pretty lousy job (a few notable exceptions, but given the volume of media, very few are actually any good) even when given a special access.

Kostitsyn signed his last deal 3 years ago when the cap was a lot less. I don't see this as a "raise", really. One can sign Subban ($3.75m), Price ($5.5m), and Kostitsyn to raises and still come up with about $5m in cap space if you take out the Gomez deal for next year, room enough to get another player to help out. I personally refuse to let the poor judgements of a career AHL coach who won't be brought back to the organization next season dictate how this franchise proceeds. We need good players, Kostistyn is still a good player.

Don't forget Bournival, our most criminally underrated prospect.

It was Svitov. If Emelin got beat up by Chistov, well, we'd know why Emelin doesn't fight: he got beat up by a soft crappy scorer that's like 5'10". At least Svitov is a 6'3" centre in the Holik mould that didn't pan out.

Dumba is my favourite of the D prospects. Trouba might be second, Murray's up there he just seems to be more of an all-round Bouwmeester type guy than anything else, which isn't a bad thing obviously, JayBo is still a good D. I was just talking about forwards I like I realize. Frk would be risky... coming into this year he was expecting to be at or near the top, a power forward who some saw as a Czech version of Neely (but really, probably a Tuomo Ruutu type is more accurate). But his concussion has really set him back. Next year, he could make everyone look silly if he recovers. Forsberg is definitely better than Aberg, I was talking about picking Aberg if the Habs climb closer to the playoff bubble and draft 10th or later. Forsberg might be gone by pick 5 depending on the team who picks.

http://www.coppernblue.com/2012/2/14/959595/2012-nhl-draft-consensus-top-100-february-update Consensus Top 100 from the excellent Oilers blog The Copper & Blue. Bob Mackenzie, Redline Report, Future Considerations, ISS, Craig Button, Hockey Prospectus, The Scouting Report and Win Shares' rankings are all mixed together to create this consensus list. If the team rises to the 10-14 draft range, I'm big on both Pontus Aberg and Tomas Hertl as forwards. Teuvo Teravainen is a big time riser as well. If we can acquire a second first round pick I'd be up for taking a shot at Martin Frk who has had a rough year battling and coming back from a concussion. I'm lukewarm on Gaunce, Faksa and Collberg to be honest. I think they all lack the high-end offensive upside the Habs need to look for. This draft is all about European forwards and North American D. Even though he's falling, I still like Andreas Athanasiou's skill set. If one can find one of him, Cristoval Nieves, or Raphael Bussieres in the second round that be a great find. But a great home run pick would be to draft the soon to be 20 year old Nikita Gusev in the 2nd round. If Mike Keenan finds employment look for his team to draft Stefan Matteau.

Desharnais is better because of his linemates, not the other way around. His linemates are the two best wingers on the team with more proven track records than he has. I'm fine with Dessy, but let's not get carried away here. He's easily the third best player on that line. Pacioretty was scoring at that rate with Gomez in decline as his centre last year. The card in hand is usually better than the UFA option. Kostitsyn at $4m-$4.5m is reasonable. It'd be nice if we had a coach who didn't so enthusiastically bench him for a change. When you're down a goal, you play Kostitsyn over Palushaj and Darche, no matter how good Palushaj or Darche have played the past week.

That's so screwy. He's only owed $10m for the next two years (but the Habs would actually get penalized MORE in cap hit than actual dollars paid out (just shy of $11.4m spread over four years). So we should rule this option completely out. The amnesty buyout period with a new CBA that has a lower salary cap is likely what the Habs are shooting for. If not, then Hamilton, maybe re-entry (it is cheaper than the buyout option).

Thrower is actually Duncan Siemens' D partner. It's interesting to compare the 3 Blades D, because they're all pretty much the same age (Dietz and Siemens were late birthdays their draft year, Thrower a very early one). They all play a bit differently, and from a development standpoint, they actually might stunt each other a bit because no one D takes on the responsibility of a #1.

I kind of was thinking that maybe they think Schultz is about where White was when he was called up the first time. Statistically they're kind of similar, though it's really tough to compare that way because that 2008 Bulldogs team wasn't completely awful while this year's team is. Factor in very recent play and it might make some sense. I agree that for the NHL team there should be no way Schultz gets in unless there is another injury that hasn't been disclosed yet. Just kind of curious where Fortier was in the mix. When he's been healthy, he's been at least modestly decent. I kind of thought he had taken Ryan Russell's old spot on the team when healthy.

Games remaining: vs. Toronto - 2 vs. Ottawa - 3 vs. Washington - 2 vs. Florida - 1 vs. New Jersey - 1 Obviously every game is important, but these 9 games are more important than any. We have to catch two of these teams to make the playoffs (must be one SE team and one of the other 3, or two of the non-SE teams). What is incredibly frustrating is that four of these teams have worse goal differentials than the Habs do. Goal differential is one of those simple measures that can be looked at to pick out who is good and who isn't and notice any outliers... and while the Habs at even (+5 when you remove shootout goals) isn't world-beating, it should definitely be in the playoff group and not the lottery crew (generally -20 to -30 range). In the West, everyone above 8th is even or better, and everyone below is -10 or worse, for example. In the end, if we don't make it (and it's still likely we won't), it'll be because of a few close games we couldn't win, those blown leads, etc. It won't be because the team stinks thoroughly, that's for sure. We won't finish in the lottery. It's remarkable that's where we've been placed for the past month or so, but it was always only going to be a temporary visit. I think everyone needs to get on the faint playoff hope bandwagon because there really is no other option. This team isn't nearly bad enough to compete with the badness of the Blue Jackets, Oilers, Islanders, Hurricanes, and apparently the Bolts and Sabres (who are having way worse years than us despite hoping for similar things).

W/R/T the callup options, what is Fortier's game like right now? Obviously the team wanted to reward a guy for good work recently in Schultz (even if he doesn't play) but I kind of pegged that beyond Engqvist it would be Fortier next.

Ottawa and Florida are not very good teams sitting in a playoff spot right now. There is the potential for one team to fall out completely. The Habs are in 11th and can definitely catch Winnipeg for 10th, but there's such a large gap between 8th/9th and 10th we'll need a lot of help to make up that gap. In no way should the Habs consider being buyers. They may not sell, I suppose, especially since selling wouldn't net a lot of return anyways (unless you sold Kostitsyn, which might get a conditional 1st rounder). Moen and Gill have value, but nothing spectacular that the team can't live without if the team decided to hang on in hopes of chasing down the Senators and Panthers.

McGuire was older than I currently am (30) when he had that job, and I can't imagine blaming my youth for any mistakes I make anymore. If he was that immature and unqualified at 32, I can't imagine what 15 years of no NHL job has done to change all that. Anyways, the issue with Jim Nill with any GM job is that Detroit doesn't let go of their staff very easily. If he wants the job, we should definitely include him in the talks. As far as I'm concerned, he's a pipe dream, but sometimes those come true.

Columbus are a cap team. The Rangers outspent everyone from 1997-2004 and missed the playoffs every year. The Leafs have been a cap team since the lockout with zero playoff appearances. The Oilers have been at or near the cap the past three years. I'm hoping for a Philly in 2007 type rebound. One bad year where everyone got hurt with one high end prospect gotten through the draft as compensation and that's it.

http://articles.courant.com/1994-05-21/features/9405210429_1_pierre-mcguire-whalers-general-manager-paul-holmgren All those Pierre McGuire as GM rumours led to this article being dug up about McGuire's firing as head coach of Hartford. It's amazing. Read it. I can't see the justification in people wanting a guy who hasn't been employed by a NHL team since 1996 as their GM. If Gauthier is to go, guys like Julien Brisebois should be first in line: a lawyer with a MBA, GM of two AHL clubs, has negotiated contracts for Montreal and Tampa, and you know... is actively employed and on the rise (he's done all this and is only 34).

I will say this about Gomez: he leads the entire NHL in first assists per ice time. Ahead of Claude Giroux and Henrik Sedin. He's never been a goal scorer, and he's worse at that now than ever for sure. But he's still a darn good set up guy. His injury coincided with the team's downfall. He's still an important player on this team. Worth the money? Nope, especially since you can put his cap hit towards a good second D pairing, but he does make this team as currently constructed a lot better.

I hope the Bulldogs sign this guy: http://www.coppernblue.com/2011/12/13/2467983/daniel-kogers-problema-de-nem-katasztrofa-bump-in-the-road