TurdBurglar

This would be something from the mind of Gainey. Price has way too much potential and is still young, to consider moving him for anything other than a top player in return. If you break down the trade value wise: Loungo and Price; Price has more value, hands down. There's a reason Loungo hasn't been traded from Vancouver as of yet. Edler and Pleks; This is about even, would have give a slight edge to Vancouver as a top-pair defenceman is hard to aquire for cheap. Burrows and Beaulieu: A 3rd line player for a furture top-4 defenceman that is ready or near ready. Bealieu has more value. That trade would be a horribly unbalanced trade. Unless there's a prospect or a 1st coming back, there' no way in hell MB would do it.

I would imagine Plekanec would be the target of Vancouver as well, but if it's indeed a forward + prospect, Plekanec + Beaulieu is way too steep for Edler. Also if it's Plekanec, we wouldn't need the caps hit transferred as well because Edler is 5m per and Plekanec is 5m per. So even swap on cap hit. Beaulieu is also on the fringe of NHL ready, he could prove next season he is, so he's less of a future prospect and more of a prospect/possible roster player. He's better than Weber for sure. If I were to have my way the trade would be for Bieska instead of Edler, but the rumors were pointing to Edler on the move.

Ok, lolEklund reported twice since the draft that we are in talks with Vancouver for a defenceman. So let's take this and roll with it and make some assumptions. Edler was on the block for Vancouver for awhile, and was only taken off because of Ballard being bought out. So we can assume safely that out of Vancouver's defensive core, we're not after Tanev(RFA) or Weber(we just let him go). That leaves Hamuis, Garrison, Edler and Bieksa. Since Edler was the one they were willing to part with prior to the draft, we'll assume it's Edler. lolEklund's last report was defenceman to Montreal for a forward and a prospect. I have a feeling thet Beaulieu is on the block, because of his assault charges. A player doesn't want to be in the spotlight in Montreal for issues outside of hockey. Lots of debate will flair up over this, but I believe if we are moving a top prospect, it will be Beaulieu because of the charges. On to the roster player. We have 5 top-9 centers, Pleks, Briere, Desharnais, Galchenyuk, Eller. With the signing of Briere I felt there was room to move Pleks if needed but Desharnais would be preferred. Also Vancouver lost Roy and still would like a 3rd/2nd line center as Kesler's health is sketchy at best the last few seasons. To Montreal: Edler To Vancouver: Desharnais + Beaulieu + 1.5m in cap This evens the caps hit for both teams, Montreal is still left with 3.3m in cap space. We offer Morrow 2.5m-3m per for 1-2 years. I don't think Vancouver will attemnt to get Pleks as he will probably be playing on the 3rd line when Kesler's healthy. Possible, but I doubt it. This also leaves us with our lines looking something like: Pacioretty - Pleks - Gionta Galchenyuk - Briere - Gallagher Bourque - Eller - Morrow Prust - White - Parros

I wouldn't mind seeing Parros/Halpern swapping spots depending on the team needs. Parros only adds one dimension, and all-around Halpern is the better player, with great faceoffs to boot. If we could re-sign Halpern, I think it would be great for us.

In the interest of fairness I would guess the protected players would be limited to 6 forwards, 4 defencemen and 1 goalie. This way the expansion teams could get plenty of top-6 forwards and decent defensive cores. Goalie wise there's plenty of goalies that would be left unprotected, both teams would be in the situation columbus was in after the draft, 2 good goalies. Lots of possibilities. Riemer/Bernier Anderson/Lehner Lindback/Bishop Nabokov/Thomas Miller/Enroth Halak/Elliot Neuvirth/Holtby Hiller/Fasth Fluery/Vokoun Emery/Mason I see Miller/Enroth broken up for sure, probably the strongest duo in the NHL right now. Fluery/Vokoun or Nabokov/Thomas would be broken up. Not to mention some great young backups for a team the would draft Thomas or Vokoun, like Holtby/Neuvirth or Lindback/Bishop or Halak/Elliot or Bernier/Reimer. I know Fluery and Vokoun have a NTC each, but you'd have to think if their only allowed to protect 1 goalie there's no way the NTC/NMC would protect both.

Don't players have to provide the lists of teams they are willing ro not willing to be traded to annually?

Anyone else following the Alfredsson situation in Ottawa? Alfie blames Murray for not offering him fair value, Murray blames J.P Barry and according to Murray's account J.P. Barry blames Alfie for not being able to reach him. I know we've had some pretty bad GM's, but Murray is a a new breed of douche as GM. Glad he's in Ottawa.

This would be interesting for sure. Should a team have to protect a player with a NTC/NMC? It would depend on the clause. If it is limited NTC/NMC they should provide their list and make themselves available or unavailable to the drafting team, unless protected. If it were full NTC/NMC it should be up to the player, and not need to be protected by the team. If they are unprotected and refuse, then the team should be forced to protect them, forfeiting the protection of another player. Adding to this the drafting team can pick only 1 unprotected player with a full NTC/NMC per team, to prevent "cycling" the protected list until a desirable player becomes available. Also, I believe the rules for the number of protected players would be reduced as the whole point of the salary cap, which wasn't in effect during the last expension draft, was to make the league more competitive. Under the last ruleset for the draft, teams could easily protect their top 5 defensemen and top 9 players, leaving the drafting teams with a team full of bottom 6 forwards and bottom pair defencemen, theoretically. Completely counter acting the desire for a fully competitive league.

Just want to point out our defense wasn't the best in the league last year. It was one of our weaknesses. Offense from the back end was a strength, but defense on the back end was a weakness. So saying Markov could be #1 on alot of teams, but #2 on ours is giving too much credit to our defense. P.K. is good, but not a top-10 defensive defenceman, overall he is, but in his own zone he isn't. If P.K. didn't have all those points he wouldn't of even got a nod for the Norris, look at Letang. Your assessment of Markov is mixed. He is capable of being great defensively and he doesn't play crash and bang defense, he plays a smart style of defense, like Lidstrom. Yet his speed was one of his biggest assets while playing defense, and that is diminished. Markov's speed is comparible to Chara's size when it comes to how important it is to how well each can play defense. The end of last season we saw Markov struggle, and he wasn't #1/#2 calibure during that time. I wouldn't chalk Markov up to anything more than a top-4 wildcard defenseman this season. His play defensively will be the thing that could take our defense from middle of the pak to top in the league. Last season was his first season since 2 bad knee injuries, and it went well. Either we're going to see the Markov that ended last season or the one that we all know. It's entirely possible he found the limitation of his knee and instead of pushing himself for a few good years, he might not push himself for a longer career. This will determine if we will see the top pair guy we all know, or just a top-6 veteran. I'm not saying this because I don't like the guy, he's one of my favorite Habs of all time. Just trying to put a realistic spin on him at this point in his career and with his injuries. Knee injuries are one of the worse for any athlete in any sport, he has 2 consecutively.

I see Markov getting resigned if he continues producing, probably for $4.5M for 2-3 years. I don't think Diaz will be as solid defensively or offensively as Markov has been his entire career. I see Diaz as a poor man's Markov. He has a great mentor to do so. I think Diaz needs 1 more year with us and Markov to produce like he did last season, then we trade him. Two consecutive years producing, being a PP quarterback, and we will get a good return for him. I honestly don't see Diaz being more than a 2nd pair defenceman at best, but will thrive on a team that can afford to have him on the 3rd pair and a PP specialist. Too bad with another good year producing he will be up for a contract we won't be able to afford.

He's suited for an assisstant coach job. Will probably do well in Pittsburgh. He can hone their defensive game, but not have the final say so the team won't always be in a defensive shell. Really smart move by Pittsburgh imho.

Thanks for reading my post..... Didn't say we needed to get bigger. I said our big guys need to play like big guys. Last Playoffs our little guys were plying like big guys and our big guys were playing like little guys. Watch all 5 of our playoffs games, look who is in front of the net when there was someone there. Gallagher and Gionta. Yes we were outshooting them and out possessing them. Where were our shots coming from? Outside. How about all those rebounds? Oh, wait there weren't many. You can dismiss size all you want. You know Chicago had a guy you might recognize his name, Bickell? You know 6'4 233 guy who stood in front of the net? He was a HUGE factor in Chicago's cup. The guy had 17 pts in 23 games. He stood in front of the net, tipped pucks, got rebound, but most importantly screened the goalie. Screening the goalie gets goals, even if the player screening doesn't get a point. Screening the goalie causes rebounds, wait didn't we had nearly no rebounds vs Ottawa? Anderson THAT much better than Rask/Quick/Howard? No, Chicago had a guy standing in front of the net that could screen the goalie. We had 2 guys who were willing to stand there, but goalie just looked above them. Boston had 6'5 Lucic to stand in front of the net. Let's look at your interesting hits stat. Chicago had 449 Home hits and 41 home goals. Chicago had 212 away hit and 23 away goals. Boston had 443 home hits and 35 home goals. Boston had 402 away hit and 30 away goals. Look at the stats of home hit and goals vs away hit and goals withe the sole anomaly of Toronto and Ottawa the other 14 teams were near their ranking in goals and hits. So there seems to be some sort of correlation. Let's address your theory of speed, skill, shooting and goaltending. Last playoff run we speed, lots of it. We had skill. We had shooting. We didn't have goaltending. We had the puck possession and shots in spades last playoffs. Funny how the size, the thing we lacked most, in front of the net made that much of an impact on our offense. I guarantee if we had a Lucic/Bickell to stand in front of Anderson the series would of looked alot different. This team was build with everything except size. Look at our record for the past 5 years to see how well that has worked for us. Look at the 5 previous cup winners, every single one had at least 1 big guy to stand in front of the net, Bickell(Chicago), Penner(Los Angeles), Lucic(Boston), Byfuglien(Chicago), Malkin(Pittsburgh). Every single one of them 6'3-6'5. Last Playoffs we had the wrong people in front of the net, a point I made clearly the first post but somehow you misinterpreted it.

Ready for a cup run? From the team who scored 9 goals in 5 games? 1.8 G/G. The finalist scored 2.78 and 2.96 G/G respectively. I doubt very much Briere alone is going to boost our G/G a full 1. We are far from ready for a cup run. We can point at size being the problem all we want but the fact is the only 2 that would stand in front of the net to screen the goalie, were the smallest 2 players on our roster. There's a fundamental team concept problem there. We either need to get more people with size who is willing to stand inf front of the net or get our players with size to stand there. Simple, but I don't see this group doing that. I like Patches, but he needs to get in front of the net more. Remember how Bourque played the first month of the season until his injury? That is how Bourque needs to play game in and game out. If our core won't do it, bring in someone who will.

So how about this for a crazy idea. To Edmonton: Diaz To Montreal: Hartikainen + pick Frees up 1.25M in cap space bringing our cap space to ~4.5M. Sign Hainsey for 3 years @ 3.5M-4M. Defense sorted out. Hartikainen will be a good 3rd-4th line checker in the future. Still gives us Pleks/Eller/DD to move for any other piece we might need, or cap space to sign Hainsey. Hainsey - Subban Gorges - Markov Emelin - Boullion

If we are indeed after Clifford, I doubt Bourque would be going the other way. This would be a move to have 3 left wingers with some size (6'2 across the board) to offset the size of our right wing. Bourque/Patches on top 2 lines, Clifford on the 3rd, Prust on the 4th. Assuming we are using Briere on the right wing, that would make the top 3 line's right wingers being 5'10, 5'9 and 5'7. Only thing that doesn't make sense is Galchenyuk would need to go to center so we would still have 5 centers and only 4 positions to fill. I'd be very shocked if we started next season with all the centers we have at this moment.

Rumor had it Ryder was looking for a 5m+ for 4+ years when he was still with us. Probably why he was let go, wanted to see if he could cash in with us before free agency. Once we shot that down and both parties decided to go elsewhere, Ryder went to free agency and found out he wasn't worth his asking price. At that point bridges were already burned and even if he wanted to come back, not saying he did, it was probably too late.

While I agree with you there's a few factors we have to take into consideration. Our current core when healthy looks as follows: Gorges - Subban Markov - Emelin Boullion - Diaz Dreweski/Tinordi In Emelin's absence I would like to see Markov and Subban together if Markov can handle the minutes. This frees up Gorges to be paired with Diaz or Boullion for second pair minutes, and either Boullion or Diaz pair with Tinordi or Dreweski for 3rd pair minutes. This is the reason Dreweski was re-signed, to take the 3rd pair minutes if need be. My thought process is we shouldn't be looking for a temporary replacement for Emelin, we should be looking for someone who can take his place just as good or better than he can, pushing his position to the 3rd pair where he can stay or fight for his spot back. So ultimately it would look something like this: Gorges - Subban Markov - ??? Emelin - Diaz/Tinordi/Boullion Wouldn't mind Boullion and/or Diaz getting traded for a solid second pair defenseman. That being said, I still stand by Diaz is a year away from being valuable on the market. One more year of good offensive numbers and he'll fetch a nice return.

I think we need to replace Gionta/Desharnais with a winger with some size that plays in the dirty areas. Would also like to see a top-6 defenseman that can hold his own defensively and play physical. That being said that is what every team wants. I'm comfortable with the team we have right now, but would like to see some more moves made and still believe this isn't the roster we will be starting next season with. I do believe with the Briere signing it means one of our previous centers is going somewhere. I also believe if Galchenyuk isn't play center this season he needs to work hard all season on his faceoffs to be ready for next year at center. Waiting too long with him on the wing is taking our future star center away.

Malhotra's not retiring of his own free will if he is retiring. The Canucks wouldn't let him play because they said his vision is endangering is safety. So he may not pass the required physical to play for another team.

Eklund saying trade talks are heating up between Montreal and LA. Only reason I bring it up is, looking over LA's roster and our roster, I don't see what they have that we would want compared to what we would have to give up for it. Only thing I see that might make a sliver of sense would be Pleks for Carter?

While I agree Ryder will put up points, and he did with us last season, there's an important stat your not paying attention to. Last year's playoffs Ryder put up 2 points in 5 games. Not sure if your aware of this but Briere is second in playoff points since the 04-05 lockout. He has tallied 106 points in 102 playoff games. Ryder has tallied 42 points in 64 playoff games. While I don't expect Briere to continue at this pace, it's a stat you can't ignore. We had a good season last year and a bad playoff run. Briere is exactly the player we needed last playoffs, we didn't have him, but now we do. We can point our fingers at size or defence or injuries, but it came down to we couldn't put the puck in the net last playoffs. Briere does exactly that in the playoffs.

I like the deal. Top-4 defenceman, 2 bottom-6 forwards, Simmonds could even break in the top-6 as well. Makes the Briere and Parros moves make sense. Grindy/mix-it-up 4th line, Briere centering top line. Prust - White - Parros is going to be a horrible line to play against. I still think Desharnais should be moved.

Heard something interesting about Briere today. His production dropped off over his last 2 seasons, but he's played all but those 2 seasons as center. Looks like hes not as effective as a winger. Why wouldn't you move him to center to see if the production is really down or he doesn't play well at wing?

We just signed a top-6 center, and I believe Desharnais will be the second line center next season. I'm assuming, as you are, that Pleks is probably on the move. This short-term Briere contract is only to give Galchenyuk time to develop into our top line center, I believe.

Not worried about Price. If he stays like this we have Fucale going to be ready in 5-6 years time. Until then we still have an above average goalie between the pipes.