48MPHSlapShot

4-2 Canucks Kuzmenko

Anyways, back here on planet earth it's great to see the kid back and making an impact after a real rough year. Seems like Lek may take a little longer to develop, but that's okay, as we're pretty deep on the wing. We can afford to let him marinate.

42 points in 38 games in NCAA hockey. Don't know if he's just not passing the eye test or picking up a lot of secondary assists, but you have to have some offensive talent to put up those types of numbers. Regardless, it's nice to have another strong two-way center prospect. Allvin has done a good job at deepening our prospect pool in a short time, in addition to overhauling our developmental system.

Excellent. 22 years old with great numbers this year. Well done, Allvin.

Tocchet seems to think he can help Boeser in the offseason, and Tocchet already seems to have him playing better than he was earlier this season. His point total is actually respectable again. Considering that we'd probably have to retain more on Boeser to move him than Garland, I'm starting to lean towards moving Garland instead.

It's really dependant on how much salary we can move in the offseason and how our younger guys can develop. If we can have one or two of Podkolzon, Kratsov, Hoglander, Joshua take some offensive strides, while a couple guys like Karlsson or Bains can make the jump to the NHL it could go a long ways toward filling the roster and saving us some money. There are a few centers available like Eller and Blueger that should be available in the offseason that I think could be had for relatively cheap and short term while Raty hopefully develops into our permanent 3C. Gavrikov would be a really nice addition to our blueline. I was hoping we'd be able to sign Livingstone as well, but that doesn't appear as though it's going to happen. Malinski is still on the table though, and we could always resign Schenn. I'm looking forward to next season. Tocchet seems to have the team playing the right way, and although Demko is doing is great, it doesn't seem like we're constantly being bailed out by him, which leads me to believe this is more sustainable than what we were doing under Bruce last year.

Nah, if we go from having the 8th overall pick to the 13th overall pick because our goalie came back and proved he was still elite after a poor start and nasty injury and because our new coaching staff has the team playing like one of the better teams in the league, it's literally the end of the world. It would have been much better to be picking a couple spots higher while having a broken goalie on the books for several more years at 5+ million per season and a freshly hired coaching staff that had no idea what they were doing.

You're right. Nothing but pain ahead. We should all jump ship and leave the fandom and never come back You go first.

NMC

God, shut up.

He took a nasty foot injury in the offseason. Methinks that likely had something to with his poor play this year. I'm hoping with a proper offseason he'll come back better next season.

Nailed it.

I expect an ugly one. A game where even the tankers are gonna be sinking into their seats. Hope I'm wrong.

I have a bad feeling about this game (good if your a tanker I guess). I have the feeling Dallas is going to be out for blood after the last time we met, and I detest the Hughes-Myers pairing. Against a good team I have the feeling they might get feasted on tonight.

We need to find the space to accommodate the raises to Miller and Kuzmemko too. That's roughly 7 million in cap space just to accommodate players that are already on the team. We'll likely have to retain significantly on Myers to get him off the books. OEL isn't movable, but nearly his entire cap hit is off the books for next season if we choose to buy him out, so that would do it, but then his cap hit is 2.3 the year after, and that coincides with when Pettersson and Hronek are going to require raises. The two years following that the OEL cap hit becomes 4.7, which would be a hard pill to swallow. Bottom line is they need the figure out another way to make room.

Blueger would be a good option. I was thinking of maybe someone like Lars Eller as well. He's older, so he likely wouldn't cost too much and would sign short term while Raty develops into our full time 3C.

Don't really get the Barbashev rumors. Good player, but starts mostly in the Ozone and has a poor faceoff percentage. I'd rather target someone who maybe doesn't have the offensive prowess, but plays in a lot of defensive situations and has a good FO %. There are a couple of older Cs that should be available that fit the bill, would be cheaper, and would require less term. Cool with Gavrikov though.

6-2 Dallas Roberstson

Intriguing...

Because his full cap being on the books would likely prevent us from improving the roster in some other way in the offseason.

We have to clear cap to make room for Miller and Kuzmenko's new contracts. Myers only has one year left. As long as we retain, we should be able to move him. I don't see a scenario where we hold onto Myers when we need to clear as much cap as possible.

Fair enough. Guess that fills our "nice things" quota for the next decade or so.

That's better!

Well that completely and totally sucks, although I suppose I should have expected as much. We don't get nice things here.