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DownUndaCanuck

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Everything posted by DownUndaCanuck

  1. Bear surely gets let go, we can't be re-signing a guy who's play can be replaced by Johansson, Woo, Burroughs etc., and who will start the season injured anyway for over 2M. Even if healthy we shouldn't be re-signing him. I think having guys like Wolanin, Brisebois, Johansson and Woo around is nothing but good for our team depth. They'll all start as basically Abby's top-4 but you know injuries will hit in which case it's time for those guys to step up. I think though we should always have one spot for a kid to start the season and that's the 3rd pairing LD spot - a battle between Hirose and Rathbone at training camp, and whoever loses sits on the bench (whoever wins plays with Myers so not sure which is better). I think Wolanin is one of the more under-rated defencemen but still, all those guys are 15-18 minute bottom pairing guys at best - we need proper bonified top-4 quality if we want to be considered a playoff team.
  2. Depending on how the draft shakes down, I wonder if we do trade down, pick a defenceman (I think Willander might be available in the 2nd half of the first or you're right - Simashev) and then go for a home-run defenceman with the 2nd round pick. If Strbak is somehow available, take him, otherwise take a stab at someone like Dragicevic, Gulyayev, Bonk, Allen etc. who all aren't quite good enough for the first. Lindstein might fall through the cracks too. Would be a pretty nuts couple of weeks if we basically flip OEL for Willander + Lindstein, a real changing of the guard on defence.
  3. Yeah I wouldn't mind a stab at someone like Kuraly. 30 years old, plays pretty decent 3C minutes, 2 years left on a 2.5M deal. Surely they are open for business and want more scoring, a guy like Beauvillier or Garland makes a lot of sense for them. If things get really nuts we could make a massive deal and involve Peeke too, but there's a lot of veteran 3C guys out there who could help our team while we wait for Raty. Boeser (2M retained) + Beauvillier + Rathbone for Peeke + Kuraly
  4. Yeah I think this is part of the plan. I mentioned ages ago that it'd almost be worthwhile buying out OEL and signing a guy like Gavrikov or Graves to a 5ish million deal. 6M is a bit pricey, but at the end of the day, Graves at 5M + 4.7M of OEL dead cap (9.7M total) is definitely better than OEL at 7M + a 2M player (eg. Bear). Obviously it's a bit more complex than that - looking at our cap structure, we have plenty of other places we can save that dead cap. First and foremost - Demko is pretty much playing like a 8-10M goalie on a 5M contract. Petey and Hughes are playing 3M over their caps. We just got a bargain deal for Kuzmenko. Obviously Garland and Boeser and Myers are pricey, but their deals won't be as impactful during those heavy years. We just have to be savvy with the cap going forward, which will be tricky because we need defencemen now, and an easy way is to sign one through free agency which is always a bit inflated and can come back to bite us in the butt in the future. I think we don't have a choice - we have to throw money at someone who can play top-4 minutes and play on the PK, especially on the left. Graves fits the bill but if we sign him to a 6x6M deal I'd be pretty wary we're just creating the next cap problem. Watching PA very closely, he started his career very conservative and then has made some massive plays. The Bo deal, Hronek deal and now this OEL buyout are shaping his career as a GM. It's far too early to say if any of them are wins or losses yet, I'm pretty happy he's fixing the team and addressing our needs, but he's still got a lot of work to do.
  5. Personally I wouldn't have made the Hronek deal, would have just used this draft as a chance to really stock-pile the prospects and build from within. The Bo deal was a great launching pad. I don't mean to fully rebuild, just slowly grow from within. Much more patient than what Allvin is doing. If Petey and Hughes don't like it they can leave and we can get some massive assets for them leaving. Don't care if management or the fans don't like it. CDC would have loved a full on rebuild the way Chicago have done and just sell all of our top players a few years ago (eg. Miller in his prime), but that's a bit less realistic and a more obvious tank. This would just be a slow tank. Don't sacrifice anything that hurts the team's future. When you look at Detroit, they're a good team to compare to us. Not to say either is doing better, they're not exactly tanking but they're not making rash moves to try and build around their young core (who are admittedly a bit younger than ours). They're still building - selling a bit, stockpiling picks and prospects, biding their time before making a move. We're making our move now, for better or for worse, but it certainly is a bit odd for such a bad team to "go for it". You don't see many bottom feeders as buyers. CBJ are doing it too which is a bit strange for sure, but they've completely revamped their team. I don't think this is the long-term key to success but it might buy is a short little window or two to get into the playoffs here and there, and then who knows. I'll watch Yzerman's team closely, he knows what he's doing - patiently growing that team value from within, flipping players he may not re-sign at the height of their power for more picks/prospects and keep recycling until the overall team value is higher and higher, then when the kids are in their prime I expect him to gun for it. We didn't do enough of that internal farming IMO.
  6. Yeah looks like Cap Friendly has us at 12M now in cap space assuming we use up all our LTIR which we probably will. That's a tonne of cash to play with. We have our forward group pretty set, just need a 3C which should cost us around 2-3M depending on who we target. Technically that doesn't look like it includes a backup goalie so Martin or Silovs or Delia is surely under 1M. The big hole is defence. We don't even have Burroughs signed. Plenty of decent bottom pairing options, on the left, Wolanin, Hirose and Rathbone have to take the cake. On the right, Burroughs and Myers should fill the hole. We have Brisebois signed but surely he stays in Abby next year rather than our bottom pairing LD. So that's around 8-9M to spend on two defencemen. It certainly can be done. I don't think PA has the balls to trade the 11OA for a young RD but would anyone be mad if he snagged us Peeke or Schneider for 11OA? Same argument as goes for Hronek - why draft one who could take years and may not pan out when we could just acquire one now? Both are quite cheap. Then we go and sign a solid LD like Graves for 5-6M. Even with Peeke (2.5M) we're under cap. Lots of options, PA is making is mark on this team. This is a big off-season for him. Really is playoff or bust now, we're slowly chipping away at our future for the immediate but if all of this doesn't pay off and we don't make the playoffs, we'll be in trouble down the line for sure.
  7. Yeah I think Allvin has a lot left up his sleeves. I'm pretty concerned about Hronek after his injury, I doubt he'll be the same physically. He looked good in the games he was paired with a decent partner but struggled when he had to control a pairing by himself so I don't think putting him with a kid is the right time - he needs a solid partner who can hold his own. That leaves Hughes obviously all by himself. We can't even rely on the easy option of Bear anymore. PA has some big moves to make, but now he has a bit of cap to play with. I'm hoping for one UFA defenceman signing, one defenceman via a trade and hopefully a 3C via the easy free agency option or a winger trade. Got a feeling it's going to be a very active period just before and after the draft, I think PA will make some moves at the draft day.
  8. Thing is, a lot of average teams have dead cap. Minnesota lead the way and are still somehow competitive with bargain stars. However, look at the final top-4 of the last year's playoffs: Vegas - no dead cap Carolina - no dead cap Dallas - no dead cap Florida - like 1.2M dead cap for Yandle for a couple of years Contending teams play to their fullest potential. Buying out OEL means we probably aren't going to fully contend any time soon, but we can be an average playoff team and get away with it. That being said PA didn't have much of a choice, one of OEL or Myers had to go - I thought Myers would be the easier one to move but evidently not, so the buyout is the only way. In a year's time we'll have rid us of both the elephants which is fair play to PA, he can finally start from scratch.
  9. Could work well - give Graves 6M (bit much IMO but we should act desperate now without much LD depth) and give Boeser for Peeke straight up? I'd rather not part with Brock but if we have a play on a young physical RD we should go for it.
  10. It's the OEL trade, combined with the LE signing, which really hurt this team big-time. If you take those two mistakes out, JB did pretty well, but those two moves handcuffed the team for many years and will do so for many more years to come. If we had just waited one or two more years it would have been all over. Instead JB went for a home-run and missed big time. Allvin is making similar-ish sort of moves like the OEL buyout and Hronek trade, but to be fair he doesn't have much of an option with the mess he's inherited - no defencemen, no good prospects and a big looming OEL contract over his head. He could have come in and been very patient - just draft and develop our own RDs and wait for OEL's deal to expire, but clearly he's been pressured to win and win now. All this talk about Petey and Hughes wanting to compete ASAP is a big component of it but I bet management are saying the same thing - they don't care about the future, it'll be someone else's problem, let's try and win now and see what happens. That was the same thinking behind acquiring OEL and ironically it's the same mentality behind buying him out.
  11. Hirose did look good but look at these playoff top 4 defences...they don't exactly have some kid from college in there, they have veteran 25-35 year old 20+ minute 6'3" 200lb+ beasts. Hirose or Rathbone pair really nicely on our bottom pairing with Myers or Burroughs on the right but they have to be the low minute man at around 15-17 mins a night, asking them to play on the 2nd pairing will be far too much of a responsibility. We've got to put them in positions to succeed and that's mostly 5 on 5 agains opposing team's bottom 2 lines and 2nd unit PP, no PK and never on the ice against stars.
  12. With Allvin moving fast to want to contend now, I wonder if NHL-readiness plays a factor? Obviously with the OEL buyout a defenceman should be non negotiable unless a real stud is available (Dvorsky, Leonard, Benson) and even then it's 50-50. Of these players, Benson is pretty far off. Willander is committed to the NCAA but he looked very good, but may take a bit longer than say Reinbacher or ASP who are already playing against men. I know you don't want to rush defencemen but either of those 2 could maybe jump straight into the league in a couple of years as 19-20 year olds. Don't see many go straight into the NHL but I wonder if ASP will given his skating ability. I think in terms of NHL-readiness it probably goes ASP > Reinbacher > Willander.
  13. Problem is...we don't have any good D prospects really. Elias Pettersson? Maybe, but he's far from elite, he's a former 3rd rounder. Maybe if they take a defenceman with our 11OA pick, one of ASP, Willander or Reinbacher could probably be an NHL defenceman in 3 years but that's a heck of a gamble. We'll have to be very careful with our cap during the 4+M dead cap years and hope we have a lot of ELCs going then, but that would equate to draftees last year/this year and we don't have that many top end picks to really justify that (because we traded them away lol). For example, if we had 2 firsts and a 2nd this year, surely one or two of them would be NHL-worthy and on a cheap ELC during the 4.5M OEL buyout years. Just going to have to be very careful cap wise going forward. I think once Boeser and Myers' deals are up we'll see some big changes too but don't forget that big fat Petey extension coming up.
  14. Just watch some team sign him for like 2-3M and he go on to be a great defenceman for them and drop 20+ minutes, 20-30 points. It'd be too funny if it's Edmonton or Calgary. He's really not a bad defenceman, just a bad contract, and would be a great 5th defenceman pick up for any team. Obviously we saw how bad and slow he was but he's only 30 - we've seen guys like Burns and Karlsson re-start their careers, I think OEL will too just to spite us.
  15. The OEL buyout was a big bang by Allvin to get things going but now looking at our lineup, we're very thin on defence obviously. We need a couple of guys. Realistically you can't just sign everyone in free agency. We have addressed one major need of getting cap space, now our big needs are - find a 3C, get TWO top-4 defencemen and try and get bigger and stronger. Easy. 1) Sign Graves - 5M x 5 years This could easily end up being the next Tyler Myers contract but we don't have a choice right now. Graves looked good, I think he was a reason NJD were so strong, not a product of their good play, and obviously I think he'll be a bit sloppier on our team, but at 5M for a fairly young, big defenceman, you can't go wrong. Lock him down to play with Hronek as a great shutdown pair. 2) Trade for Peeke We could trade for guys like Pesce, Hanifin, Marcus Pettersson etc. but I think they'll all cost too much (Boeser +++). CBJ have been active in moving defencemen, they've remodelled their team already and right now Peeke is the guy on the outside looking in, he doesn't have a top-4 spot there next year. Maybe they want to keep him on their 6th/7th man spot but why not get some value for him? They need scoring up front and we have plenty of that. Give them (in priority) one of Beauvillier, Garland or Boeser. We'd probably have to add a depth defenceman, someone like Rathbone or Burroughs (once we re-sign him, ouch), but I think value-wise that's pretty fair and fixes both team's needs. He was shelled last year so I wonder if CBJ want to move on from him whereas we could rejuvinate his career. It's a risky pick up a bit like Graves because who knows if he's the product of bad team play or the cause of it, but if we slot him with Hughes he can surely only get better. 3) Sign Kampf There's lots of good 3C options out there but we need a bone-dry boring guy who can kill penalties and win faceoffs - that's it. We've got so many scoring wingers, our 3rd line will score goals, but we need someone who can take defensive responsibilities away from Petey and Miller. 2M should get the job done, Toronto really don't have room to re-sign him. Cap wise this all costs us around 9.5M but we'll shave off around 4-5M for the players we lose in the Peeke trade, so around 5M all up and we currently have 6.5M in cap (12M according to CF with LTIR). I suppose there's room to sign a tertiary big strong winger but I'd rather give Podkolzin and Hoglander a shot. Mikheyev - Pettersson - Kuzmenko PDG - Miller - Boeser Beauvillier - Kampf - Podkolzin Joshua - Aman - Hoglander Hughes - Peeke Graves - Hronek Hirose - Myers Burroughs
  16. If we trade the 11OA away now then PA is worse than JB. Got to have some sort of insight into the future and the next GM who's going to have to clean up this mess when Allvin is fired eventually. I think we need 2 defencemen now - get one through free agency, one through a trade. Soucy and Clifton are attractive UFAs but neither have played 20+ minutes consistently, although they may be poised to break-out. Honestly the best combination would be to sign Graves at 5M x 5 years or so and then target a RD via trade - Peeke really sticks out after all the moves CBJ have made on defence, he's an odd-man out now. He's a risky guy to target, he got absolutely destroyed defensively last year, but we'd be hoping that's a product of the bad team rather than bad play on his behalf, so I do wonder if we could buy-low on him. Surely one of Garland, Beauvillier or (hopefully not) Brock + a depth defenceman (Rathbone or Burroughs) would be enough for Peeke. At the end of the day all of that costs us around 2-3M in cap space anyway so enough cash to sign a 3C like Kampf to a 2M deal and we've still got some pennies to play with. Mikheyev - Pettersson - Kuzmenko PDG - Miller - Boeser Beauvillier - Kampf - Podkolzin Joshua - Aman - Hoglander Hughes - Peeke Graves - Hronek Hirose - Myers That's a pretty well balanced line-up if you ask me
  17. I'd rather just sign Graves for 5M than give up a player for Hanifin but if Graves goes, I'd give up Boeser for Hanifin. They will want scoring, makes sense, not sure if that's enough or if we need to add a defenceman like Rathbone or Burroughs because Hanifin is pretty much their top minute LD man. I think Pesce's value is probably similar, both teams would probably ask for Miller, we'd counter with Boeser + bottom pairing defenceman and it'd be interesting...
  18. Oh boy this is massive. I joked about an OEL buyout at the end of the year, obviously the short-term cap savings are nice, those 2 years at 4.7ishM hurt us big time, especially because we'll have some big contracts in place then too (the Petey extension as well), but we can cope with the 2M cap hit at the end of the deal. I'm very surprised by this knee-jerk reaction by PA. I thought OEL really deserved 1 year without an injury with these good defensive coaches to see what he could do. We desperately needed 1, maybe 2 top-4 defencemen this off-season, not to lose one. Going forward now, we're in a real mess. I guess every team has dead cap and we'd just lost all of ours so it's about managing it - we can't add to it and retain on trades (eg. Myers, Garland) so we have to sit with the OEL dead cap and really not add to it. This move tells us we want to fix the D so that is promising, I'd have been happy going into next season with OEL as our bottom pairing LD but not 2nd pairing guy. Obviously now we need a rock solid relatively young LD to play 20-22 minutes to take some pressure off Quinn. Whether that's a free agent (Graves?) or via trade (Hanifin, Marcus Pettersson), we have to be active now. Makes me wonder if Allvin already has something in place... Next season we have cap to play with, looking I suppose Allvin thinks we'll have some big contracts off the board (Boeser, Myers) which is where OEL's buyout really hurts us, but we have to replace these guys and if we're trading picks away, it's not going to be cheaply coming from within. I'm not overly mad with the move but the follow up moves will determine whether this was worth it or not. Right now we have Hughes, Hronek, 1 year of Myers left aaaand that's our defence. We need 1 top-4 defenceman to be considered an NHL team. We need 2 top-4 defencemen if we want to be talking playoffs. Myers for me right now is a 5th guy at best and doesn't crack any playoff top-4. As it stands I suppose Hirose or Rathbone is starting at 3rd pairing LD with Myers but there's an entire top-4 pairing missing now.
  19. Yeah I agree, Reinbacher fits a lot of criteria but I've got a feeling he has big bust potential. ASP is massively hyped too but I think his offensive vision will carry him far, a bit like Hughes. I've got a sneaking suspicion Willander may well end up the best of the bunch years down the line. I was surprised to see him basically lead the Swedish D at the WJC, even over ASP, so wouldn't be mad if we pick him that high, even over the other two..
  20. Interesting to hear we're meeting with Benson, I think the draft will go one of two ways and it all comes down to the D. Either ASP and/or Reinbacher will go in the top-10 because of all their hype (may or may not be rightly warranted) and then someone like Benson, Leonard or even Dvorsky might fall to us in which case I think we have to pick one of those forwards...or, all the forwards go high as expected and we're left with a decision over ASP, Reinbacher or Willander. I wouldn't be overly mad if we take Willander over a guy like Benson, Leonard or Dvorsky but it'll be a head-scratcher and might have shades of Juolevi over Tkachuk. Regardless, I don't think there's really a wrong pick at 11OA, we'll get a good player, whether it be a future top-6 forward or future top-4 defenceman. Interesting to see how Donnie feels about trading the NYI pick for Hronek, I doubt our two firsts would have been enough to snag Carlsson but we could have walked away from the draft with ASP and Willander which is pretty nuts, or maybe even Strbak. Future top pairing in one draft but obviously they'd be a good 5 years out blah blah.
  21. Pesce is exactly what this team is missing, a bit like how Ekholm transformed the Oilers. He's only 28 so I wouldn't say too old, a big physical shutdown defenceman who can log 22+ minutes a night. Boy would he take our team over the top, and he's only on a 4M cap hit right now. Problem is, we have nothing Carolina would want that make them much better. They have great centers in Aho, Necas and KK. You could argue they don't have the best winger depth in the world but their top 2 wingers were injured last year. Is there a deal around Boeser for Pesce? We'd probably have to retain 1 or 2M and throw in Rathbone or a very decent pick (2nd next year?) but if Carolina want a winger I'd go hard for Pesce. I doubt they trade him though - Burns is only getting older (38 now...) so realistically Pesce will be their top RD. Maybe we'd have to give them someone who can log some minutes at RD and realistically that could be Burroughs, or more realistically, Myers with some retention, but then we'd have to take some sort of bad contract back and they really don't have one. Boeser + Myers + Raty + 2nd for KK + Pesce + 5th We'd have to retain around 1M on Boeser and maybe 2-3M on Myers, that's probably our best offer to fill their gaps and even then I think Carolina ends up worse off.
  22. Surely this is it for him, we can't afford to spend 2.2M on a guy who will start the year on LTIR, take up our relief and then when he comes back (after a pretty big surgery mind you), hope he slips into the team. If we was our lazy way out of finding Hughes replacement, well we're without one now in any case. Bear's play started slipping towards the end of last year, his job is very replaceable from within. We have Burroughs, Johansson, heck even Woo and Juulsen are options to playing 15-18 minutes a night on the right side. Hopefully this will force us into acquiring a true top-4 defenceman. Otherwise we better be ready to play Hronek like a dog 22-24 minutes a night, Myers will get 20 minutes a night no matter how bad he is and then one of the fringe AHLers will get the remaining 16-18 minutes.
  23. Ramsussen's pretty good, former 7OA pick and just starting to heat up offensively and massive body. I think they want to go with him over Puis Suter or Sundqvist at center so doubt they trade him to be honest but maybe moving up those places if worth him? He is really poised for a breakout season though.
  24. I wonder if they'd even do Garland for Mantha 1-for-1, or heck, I'd consider Beauvillier for Mantha. He's been pretty invisible but maybe another trade and Tocchet is the kick he needs to get going and at the very least, he's a big body for our 3rd line. I wouldn't give Brock up for him though. Mantha - UFA (Kampf?) - Garland That'd be a heck of a 3rd line
  25. Never quite hit PPG, he's a small one-dimensional scoring winger who has two consecutive 73 point seasons. Seems pretty fair. Looking back at the JT Miller deal, 8M for a two-way center who does it all and is scoring more than Bratt looks like a bargain. Obviously Jesper has plenty of time on his side to blow this contract out of the water and score more and more, but he's the sort of player who could easily dip after his contract later on and be a very expensive 2nd or 3rd line winger.
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