JacksonJ

Or if Halak beats Florida 5-4 it's because he is a superstar, but when Price loses 2-1 to Carolina it's because he is a career back-up. I guess it depends on what spin you put on things.

I was tentative at first, but have really come around to this deal. The thing I like about it is that it gives us a clear window about when they will make a cup run. Gomez, Cammi, Gio, Plek are all signed for at least the next four years, and will make up two thirds of our top six. In two years we will have the Hammer, Spacek, Gill contracts all off the books, and they will hopefully be replaced by three of Subban, Weber, Carle, and O'Byrne. At that same time we will hopefully have two of MaxPac, Eller, and Pouliot fill out the other top six spots while the third plays on the third line with two of Pyatt/Laps/Shultz/White/Moen (if resigned). This will also be the time when Carey Price is entering his prime and hopefully fulfilling that massive potential. If we resign Markov and maybe one other high end player I am confident we will be competing, maybe not next year, but two or three years down the road.

I love Darche's effort and price tag. Good move.

I think SKost could be used in a package for Sharp. He played his junior with Kane and the Hawks might like him as a cheep replacement.

If his deal is more than one year then Edmonton. They have huge problems attracting free agents, and will need someone to pass the puck to Hall and Eberle. The best situation would be if we signed Marleau. Both he and Eller can play C and wing, so the whoever earns it can play it, plus it would give us a nice safety net in case of a top-2 C going down.

If he doesn't win the 2nd line C job or we bring back Plek don't we still have the option to play him as a second line wing? IF we resign Plek then I would play Eller on a line with him and Cammi and then just trade Plek when Eller is ready to take over at C. I agree that he has already proven himself at the AHL level and needs NHL competition, but he also needs skilled line mates in order to develop properly offensively. In a perfect world our top two lines would be FA signing - Gomez -Gionta Eller - Plek - Cammi And then when we trade Plek Eller moves into Plek's spot and Pouliot moves into Eller's spot.

Marleau and Eller can both play wing though.

Meh, they both had pretty much the same effect in the playoffs last year, we might as well go for the cheaper, bigger guy. I appreciate what Plek did for us in the regular season, and defensively in the playoffs but his point totals in the second and third round were really concerning. Marleau is obviously the number one guy on everyone's list, but Jokinen could probably be seen as a sort of Marleau light.

the prophecy has been fulfilled

Now that the blues have a Halak does anyone else think Chris Mason would be a pretty good option as a backup? Hes in the twilight of his career so no controversy (age 34), yet he still had a .913% and a 2.53 GAA last year. It was good enough to earn him the starting job for Canada at the worlds, so I think he has a little left in the tank.

Wow I didn't realize Raycroft only made 500 000 last year. That would be great value for a back-up of his caliber.

Kind of a strange post, you want to trade Markov and bring in a top 4 Dman? I guarantee he won't be better than Markov. Also you said we should trade Markov because he is damaged goods. I'm guessing you don't play the stock market because selling low is a bad idea. Not sure how Marleau replaces Pleks AND the "AK's" (i assume you mean SK and AK).

So... this year... Remember last year? Who won playoff MVP? Also how would this alter our team? We have one player from Russia, and I doubt dumping Markov would put us over the top. Maybe tone down on the Don Cherry for a few days. And as far as your smurf comment goes, our "smurfs" were our best players so how would dumping them benefit us. So your model of our team would be no Markov, Cammi, Gio, Gomez, Pleks. Good call

I would have signed him at that price in a second.

It's a little late for Kessler, but otherwise looks decent. You would probably need to bring in one more top six forward.

I don't remember Svitov from his first stint in the NHL, but he appears to be worth a look. The article says he would be similar to Dustin Byfuglien, and he had 42 points in 51 games in the KHL last year. http://nhl.fanhouse.com/2010/06/03/source-...l-return/#cntnt

I agree if you aren't going to resign a player you might as well trade them, but because we are on the bubble every year it is very hard for us to trade our dead weight without it looking like we gave up (ex: Souray). Even though we didn't resign Streit we couldn't trade him that year because it looked like we had a shot to go deep. And of course it would have been a PR sh*t storm if we tried to trade our top scorers in the Centennial season. So it has been a series of strange events that have lead to us getting nothing for some promising prospects.

Thing is it doesn't matter how great your prospects look if they don't pan out. Guys like Higgins put BG in a no-win situation: resign him and have the fans and media complain, or trade/dump him and have the fans media complain. If you don't want to keep a player and you don't want to move him what do you want done? Of the four players you mentioned only two were prospects, everyone agrees in hindsight we should have signed Streit, and with Perezhogin... well I'm hazy on details with him but it didn't look like BG was in a good situation. When you refer to us losing assets who is that anyway? Most guys were lost for attitude/effort reasons the only one we failed to sign I would want back is Streit.

So your point is you think we would be better off with last year's roster again? Other than at the end of last year we never really a "yearly transfiguration of our core" as you seem to suggest. The only reason we kept everyone last year was we couldn't miss the playoffs in our centennial year, and then we cut the dead weight after our humiliating playoff performance. What would we even have gotten in trading our core? Probably other teams leftovers. So my question is who do you want back from the old guard?

So it will be a Habs vs Caps Stanley Cup final? It will be interesting to see how that comes to fruition.

Raffi Torres could be high up on PGs list. Especially after his crappy showing with the Sabres, because he might be willing to settle for a lower price.a

Not sure if this is posted somewhere else, but it looks like bad news. http://tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=323108

So if Edmonton drafts Hall (they would be crazy no to) they will have Hall, Eberle and M-P Svenson (sp?) as their prospects at wing. The Bulin Wall is looking like a really bad signing, and we could probably make them part with one of their wingers for one of our young goalies. One deal I keep running over is Eberle for Halak and Pleks rights. Halak will cost WAY more than Price next year, and Plek just doesn't look like he will work for us. Playing with a rookie wing in the top-6 would save us some money and I can't see Eberle as a downgrade on AK. I really have no clue what Edm would think of this deal. As far as centre goes I would let Plek walk or hopefully trade his rights. If we can't find a suitable replacement this off-season (Marleau) then I could live with Moore or Koivu as a second line bandaid for while. It makes zero sense to lock up an underachieving Houdini or overpay in a trade. Wait for a team to be cap-strapped (Philly or Chicago) and make an offer. I agree to an extent. It doesn't really matter how great your 2C is defensively if you get shut out 3 times in a series.

I agree completely that Gomez has been productive, it would just be nice to see him put it in the net once in a while. After all Pleks struggles these last two series I wouldn't be heartbroken if we took a pass on him this off-season and spent the money on a guy like Marleau. AK is all but gone if he doesn't step it up today.

If one of our 0 for's (AK, Plek, Gomez) end tonight then we win. If not then we may be in tough.