DON

Great to see Sens rebuild so quickly, Numbnuts Burke and Jay Feaster shoud take a page from Murray's book. Even being a rival I just cant dislike them. Seems like they should smoke the Leafs for a long time coming, which is just friggin super. And nothing wrong with Habs having another tough NE competitor to deal with and the Sabres/Bruins and Sens all look to have striong teams for a while and will make for some good games.

Seem to be too many Subban threads, but i agree and long/short i am not too fussy, just want to see him signed.

i think u are correct and Myers get/got 10mill at start, but i was just considering cap hiit/average salary or some comparable young d-man, but a $5.5 deal is one which Gomer might toss a wrench into anyways with his stupid salary? And also maybe part reason for delay or low-ball offer?

I would bet numerous later d-picks may have better careers; Tinrodi-Petrovic-Faulk-Marincin or even #60 Stephen Johns or a 4th rounder named Ellis maybe? Craig Button stated it again yesterday, "more mistakes are made judging by size, in overestimating bigger and underestimating smaller prospects" and i totally agree. Tom Wilson/Oleksiak/Biggs look intimidating when playing vs 15-20 year olds, so get picked in 1st round; but fall short of skill or foot speed at next level and then the Jurco-Saad-Lessio-Collbergs of the 2nd round simply skate circles around them.

I also was never a Huberdeau fan and still think he went a bit too high, but he is skilled and i think he will pile up the goals in Florida. Couturier had back to back 100 point seasons, on a shitty team and with mono in last year (if i remember correctly) and i thought it would of just been a P.R. home run to trade up for a big Jean Beliveau type centre. The 2 Marks; Scheifele and McNeill were my favorites in 2011, but for the Habs at 17th spot and not top 10.

I think i have been way off-base in valuing Subban and i hadnt even looked at comparable players salaries and the Marc Stall/Victor Hedman/Tyler Myers all have fairly significantly higher "1st contract" salaries; so given Max's $4.5 and these other yound d-men. Subban must be at miimum = to Myers $5.5/per and <Doughty's (sp?) $7?

If Max is worth this and most would agree P.K. is likely more valuable, what should he be paid? Tyler Myers $5.5 salary for 7 years would be a fair comparable eh?

I still cant see why Jets and Sens ever passed over Dougie Hamilton and Sean Couturier; for Schiefele and Zabinajad (who will both be good but). And i agree Schiefele and Strome are not impressing, but Huberdeau is one slick player. Reilly is gonna be one pain in the ass for the Habs for a long time and he passes exactly like Markov does and is great at finding open guys around the net. Some are saying Reilly not so strong defensively, but he will be a star in Toronto and Paul Coffey wasnt super defensively neither, but who cared.

Yes he is. Timmins seems to really know his stuff and the 5th round seems like a charm, with the likes of Gallagher, Dietz and now this fellow who all look very promising. I still think Makarov might of been a steal with the Habs last pick, but maybe Nystrom will be another good one?

i like your take on McIlrath, and i see an Andy Sutton type, who may, in several years be OK, but no where near a top 10 pick.Again, size (both big and small) has equal good and bad points for most players; and a Plekanec will easily make that guy look like a pylon, as he does with best big d-man in the game, Chara, almost every game; chip puck by him and it is a race for puck, which big guys never win, or simply skate to outside and around him. But Rangers do look pretty deep, especially after trading for Nash and giving up dick-all quality proven players.

too bad, so i assume he is now "property" of Jets who are affliated with that Eagles team.

are you saying Mayer is a minor -pro at best (which seems very likely) or Dell. Do teams normally go to the 50 contract limit?

But would be very nice if all got exact same salary inflation to match salary cap increase, but it dont work exactly like that (in a perfect world maybe), his agent no doubt is argueing that fact, but like someone (you?) said, Term is a bigger deal than slary most likely?

Price was coming off a spring where he was annointed as the #1 franchise goalie, via Halak trade. So for sure they would be comparable i think. No matter how important a d-man is, it is not in the ballpark of a young #1 goalie who will be relied on to play 60-65 games, in Montreal. So a 2 year deal of 2.75-3.25/year is more than fair. As far as Subban's character goes, i dont know if really is important at all to be liked or not, respected as a player for sure, but liked or not may be irrelevant. Egomaniacs/a-holes, like a Ricky Henderson/Ty Cobb/Manny Ramirez may rub teammates wrong, but you want him playing with you cause he is simply a super talent?

Can Dell sign contract and also return to UND for his senior year? I think jettisoning Mayey would not even be an issue and move Dell in as AHL backup or ECHL starter?

Sounds logical, Obviously Subban's agent sees a much better deal in longer term than the 2 years offered. I just think, if Price was good with 2 year deal, why should Subban be that different (but if he gets a 5-6 year deal, i really could care less) Some are saying should eliminate long term deals of 10-15 years, but i disagree and say, fly at er, if a GM is dumb enough to offer one and an owner is dumb enough to pay, then go nuts.

An interesting look at NHL propect league strengths/stats. http://www.behindthenet.ca/projecting_to_nhl.html

Seems Galchenyuk took a couple games to get going at USA junior camp according to blogger Julie Robenhymer comments on game vs the Swedes: "Seconds later, Alex Galchenyuk (Sarnia - MTL) pulled a beautiful move to get the puck on net where it got lost under the goalies pads and trickled in for a 4-1 lead. " "I was also impressed with Glachenyuk who finally seemed to connect the dots and make his presence known throughout the entire game and not just in spurts like he had earlier in the week. He seemed to make an impact in one way or another every time he hit the ice and that's what you expect from the third overall selection in the NHL draft. "

Well done, glad you noted Beaulieu's minor weakness around defensive play, but also that Subban went through exact same development and now his defensive game is much improved as Beaulieu's should be by next fall. While Jarred is slightly taller than his father, i highly doubt he would fare near as well in bouts vs the Proberts/McSorley/Shannahan's of the league, as Mark did. But a very minor negative and i am sure Price is most looking forward to Gill's replacement being called up ASAP. I also agree that, on the point he aint great handling puck, but in playoffs he wasnt shy to try and go end to end with puck a few times, so he is no where near as weak with puck as ol Hal. I still like Pateryn as "sleeper" and will be a solid defensive d-man, but Ellis would have the edge as he has better offense (or some at least) i suppose. I really think Leblanc will be a lock for a spot and will be noticably improved in strength/skating with full summer of training (same improvment likely for Eller also).

As they say, he was a standout yesterday and played a bit like Gallagher does. And he was listed as a LWer which the Habs are shy of for sure. And he did seem like a smart player also and made some sweet passes, so your assessment seems pretty accurate.

Only chance in hell Wild signs those guys was to mortage the future and been a while since the Flyers have won a cup hasnt it? Carolina will be lucky to have franchise even survive in long run. You may ses Habs as being way too conservative, or "Stupid", but i would want touch any crazy long term deal, which 99% of time only work out well for the player (a la Gomez, Yashin, Redden, DiPietro etc ect). Hard to believe any fan would call for terribly high risk contract to hamstring team for a decade or more.

Just questioning why call him gifted scorer already, when stats dont bear it out 'yet'. And is August so what else is there, cept your team articles of course Am curious to see your Hab team-prospect breakdown, glad someone takes the time to put all that stuff togeather, well done.

Red Wings had 6 flops to never play NHL before picking Datsyuk, 3 before Zetterberg, etc so you might say they got very lucky a couple years and their early picks bombed more than others? As Habs have with Strait/Markov/Huet/Halak/Sergai Kostitsyn/Grabovski, so other than superstars Datsyuk/Zetterberg Habs aint alot diff than Wings.

yes it is supposedly something like 15% past the 3rd round make it and play some in NHL, which is about 18 kids/year. for the Habs since 2000, "about" 8 of 51 (15.7%) 4th round or later picks made it to NHL (i included Gallagher-Morgan Ellis but not MacMillan in the 8; but didnt include last 2 years cause who knows?). So Habs are bang-on average. 8 kids in 11 years So of; Archambault- Nygren- Dietz- Didier- Sullivan- Pribyl- Vail- Hudon- Nystrom; it is likely only 1.5 will make it. And Dietz would be my wild stab guess of this group; as he is a solid all-round d-man with average size, hits, can handle puck a bit, skates OK and has grit. But still look forward to see Hudon play today, so many mixed reviews about him.

Thats better, i espected a bit more vitriol. And dont get me wrong, i want to see Yemelin put Bergeron or Marchand through the boards (with no major injuries of course), but dont hate Bruins anymore than Red Sox or Pats and would almost prefer to see the Bruins win in playoffs series over the Leafs (toss-up). Now that Bruin play by play guy, along with Neely are in same catagory as Don Cherry, Glen Healy, Brian Burke and Mike Milbury's and are just boneheads and thank god for RDS so i dont have to liten to any of them.