Maniwaki Canuck

Two 30 goal seasons, one 80 point season, one 70 point season. Not in any way HoF material. And that's without getting into the personal stuff.

That was a lot nicer than the comment I had in mind about that anti-grammatical brain ooze.

This guy needs professional help.

Big 4-point game: let's hope we lose in regulation while totally outplaying them.

Looks to be playing a pretty solid 2-way game and has been unlucky not to score on a couple of chances. Putting him with Podkolzin helps overcome his tendency to go quiet and establishes the kind of play they need from him.

An OEL buyout would be historically large. They won't do it without being certain that he is permanently as bad as he's looked for most of this year. If he's been hurt for most of this season, they will know that and cut him some slack. The first option is still to recuperate some value out of him so I doubt they make any drastic moves before at least trying him on a pairing with Hronek. It looks like they can be cap compliant for next year without buying him out even if they can't move off of any of our wingers. The main reason for a buyout would be to go after a free agent D like Gavrikov. Personally, I'd rather just re-up Wollanin and wait for D-Petey to be ready in 2-3 years.

Guillaume "Call me Guy" Brisebois!

With Drance screaming that we need to trade his rights if he wasn't signed in February. He's an ass, but does a great job of channeling the psychosis of this fan base.

Sign this guy to a multi-year deal, already. What more does he need to show?

Great post that cuts the issues down to size and gets rid of the hype. We are almost certainly picking 5-9. Within that range, 5 is better than 9, but not hugely and we will be fine if our scouts have done their homework. That doesn't mean that "winning" should be the priority for the rest of this season though, even if it's always more fun when we do. Having an extended training camp approach makes more sense to me. This team really needs to drill down on systems play: we've seen big improvements there, but it needs to become second nature and muscle memory. Winning comes with that, but it shouldn't be the emphasis. Let's cut back on Hughes' minutes and see how many we can give Burroughs, Juulsen, Wolanin and Brisebois before their play starts to slip. Same with Kravtsov and Podkolzin, who need some reps with Petey and Miller. Kravtsov is waiver eligible so we need to use this time to assess what he can do in a top 6 role. He's been alright where he is and hasn't "earned" more but the team should want to see what either of our top play-making Cs could do with him. Garland has been magic on the 4th line, but is that really where he belongs? Surely he could sub in for Beauvillier or Di Giussepe in their top 6 forechecking roles. His role on the team needs clarification and/or they need to build his trade value. Realistically, we might lose an extra 1-2 games from taking this approach and perhaps gain one position at the draft: not a lot and not the object of the exercise, but a nice side benefit. Assessing what our depth players are capable of is the real point. We're going to need guys who can overperform on cheap contracts while we're clearing cap over the next couple of years: let's find out who they are.

Glad they got this done. The guy has been nothing but full value for us. His forechecking contribution on Miller's line is noticeable every night and part of why J.T.'s game has gotten so much better.

Totally. Trades are based on the self interest of the parties involved, not friendship. Sometimes there's more respect and comfort between GMs but that's not why they do deals with each other. Sometimes trades are wins for both sides, but that's not what motivates them. You do a deal because you think it's going to help your team, full stop.

He got Erhoff from San Jose, did the Schneider to New Jersey deal for the pick that got us Bo, and dealt Hodgson to Buffalo for Kassian. Maybe Gillis wasn't on every other GM's Christmas card list, but they did business with him just like you'd expect from the pros.

Pretty sure they'll take a look at that pairing. I could see them being the primary shutdown option with good counterattacking potential. It might rehabilitate a good chunk of OEL's value.

I can forgive a lot of Myers' miscues for what he did to Tkachuck last night.

Yeah, I was hoping for a shutout too. One blown coverage on Giroux and it was over. But our team defense is way better: the forwards are finally backchecking and doing their jobs on the breakout. When 4 of our 6 D are borderline NHL players and they play a steady game, those are the best results we're going to get. The coaches deserve a lot of credit for that. Interviews aren't the measure of the job their doing.

Interesting to see how much more skilled our skill guys are than Ottawa's.

The thug version of Myers is a useful player. J.T. completely turned that game around by hitting Stutzle. Kudos to Burroughs for holding his own against Watson. We didn't take any crap tonight and our skill came shining through.

The players could really use a year without off-ice drama. Tocchet's been great, keeping a lot of the Bruce vibe but getting through to them about how to play defense at the same time. What the doctor ordered and you can see it in how J.T. has turned it around.

I'd almost take it. Wolanin is good: we need to re-sign him and play him on the big team next year. He should have made the team out of camp this year. I saw him a fair amount when I lived in Ottawa and you could see the potential but he's improved a lot since then, especially on defense. Somehow he got type cast as an AHL player but he's a lot better than that. OEL is hard to judge because of playing through injury and transitioning to a different kind of player. He was really good in a shut-down role for large parts of last year. I'd like to see what him and Hronek look like together if they get healthy enough to play before season's end. He's no longer worth his salary but too expensive to buy out, so finding a role that maximizes what he can still do is the least bad option.

J.T. @ 6 x 8 >>> Bo @ 8 x 8.5. Management made the right call on this one. But yeah, trading both might have made sense if Miller brought back comparable assets to what Bo did.

I heard Drance say it a day or two ago, for what that's worth. Not something I subject myself to regularly. But if true, it's an interesting contract wrinkle that allows us some flexibility in dealing him.

Great. So that means that a bonus due in September could still be split (at whatever percentage of retention) with the acquiring team. That makes a summer deal a lot easier and one at the TDL even more attractive for the acquiring team. Good news either way.

Agreed. a pairing with Hronek could help OEL transition into a more defensive role (like Edler) or he can still be the primary puck mover if paired with Bear. The cost of buying him out is so prohibitive that making it work still the best option, bad though it may be.

It's actually more complicated than this. The bonus isn't due until September. I don't know if the team can pay it in advance to facilitate moving him and then making another move in free agency. Seems like the bonus was set up to prevent that. Also there's the question of how the bonus would affect the dividing of Myers' cap hit if he were moved. I don't know the answer to that either but there's a potential for a real divergence between who pays the money (mostly us) and who bears his cap hit (mostly the acquiring team) here.