Thoughts on Dustin Penner? He wasn't great with LA in the regular season, but everywhere else he's been a ~40+ point per season guy. He'd probably also come pretty cheap (no more than 3.5m AAV would be my guess).
You cherry picked the contracts you wanted to prove your point. I listed some earlier in the thread that were pretty decent.
Oh and on the Stastny deal, that term was good. I would have signed him for that in a heartbeat.
There's a lot more risk on the Hartnell and Horton acquisitions than there is in either the Vrbata or Stastny deals (both short term). I'm not sure what you're saying.
Yep should have picked him up at the deadline last year; Ecklund had us as a possible destination then, who knows might have flipped the result on the Pittsburgh series.i have a thought for a maybe cheap bottom 6 guy... Lee Stempniak...
Sorry Blah but you have to "cherry pick" to find contracts that aren't overpaid in $ or term this year....so we'll agree to disagree. As I said, I really like Statsny, the 4 years is fine (agreed) but you want to pay $7 mil/yr for a 2nd line center. Glad you're not the GM.
so day 2 finds guys like Vrbata, Grabo, Kulemin, and Olli Jokinen with contracts
essentially no top 6 talent left in the FA pool, but the possibility remains for trades still
however, Legwand, Derek Roy, Penner, Stempniak, etc. remain as pretty decent bottom 6 options
Scary part is that it gives Joey some ammunition on dollars/not term...Sorry Blah but you have to "cherry pick" to find contracts that aren't overpaid in $ or term this year....so we'll agree to disagree. As I said, I really like Statsny, the 4 years is fine (agreed) but you want to pay $7 mil/yr for a 2nd line center. Glad you're not the GM.
BOSTON HERALD: The pickings are slim following the frenzy of free-agent signings yesterday. Among the notables still available are Radim Vrbata, Dany Heatley, Mike Ribeiro, David Legwand, Mikhail Grabovski, Ville Leino, Nikolai Kulemin, Steve Ott, Olli Jokinen and Martin Brodeur.
You can defend your post without the condescension, thanks.
He's perfectly capable of being a top line center. Not an elite top line center, but a first liner. This guy is fairly close to a PPG player over his career and has 2 or 3 more years before he starts his decline.
Are you saying the Blues screwed up? Who is their top line center there? They did a great job with that deal. Mock me if you will, but the Blues are not known for bad contracts which is illustrated by the fact they have no buyouts currently on record. That contract was maybe a million, if that, more than it should have been. Based on market he is worth six million or more.
Agree to disagree? Please. I illustrated that there were decent contract to be found because someone else did the same thing you did; try and indicate there was nothing to be found in this FA pool at a reasonable price. I never tried to say that there weren't overpriced contracts. In other words you weren't representing both ends of the spectrum.
An example, the Hemsky deal was pretty good and right in line with what I wanted to offer him.
Sorry Blah but you have to "cherry pick" to find contracts that aren't overpaid in $ or term this year....so we'll agree to disagree. As I said, I really like Statsny, the 4 years is fine (agreed) but you want to pay $7 mil/yr for a 2nd line center. Glad you're not the GM.
Great another keeper of the $. The Blues got substantially better with this signing. They overpaid by at most a mill. The cap is going up. They have a couple of guys left to sign and have 9 mill in cap space. They are fine from a cap perspective. The object is to win and I think the Blues are going to do just fine in that department.
Wow...just a tad defensive aren't we. Lighten up and take a breath. First, Statsny was the best player available in FA and can be a 1C.
Get a grip bud, you started off with the "glad you're not our GM" garbage. You threw the first punch, don't pretend you are innocent and wounded here. It's comical when people do that. They throw out insults and are surprised when someone reacts. What's even funnier is that I didn't even insult you in the response. All I did was defend my position.
So first you throw out there that he's not a top line center and now you back off and say that and can be one?
What you are saying is that you are ok with having a lesser 2nd line center? Dubinsky is pretty decent, but he'd be better off as our 3rd line center or moving him to wing like I suggested. What happens when Johansen is injured? We're going to leave this team to Dubinsky and AA as the top 2 centers? No thanks. If you had Stastny, Dubinsky could move back to center and you are still in good shape.
I think you are missing the point, we would suddenly have one of the top center pairings in the East. Not Pittsburgh quality, obviously, but for the most part right up there with the rest of the best and much better than most of what the East can throw out there. It would have been even one of the better ones in the West.
That is a position of strength. The elite teams have that. Stastny would also give us more of a playmaker and a different look. Johansen is a goal scorer, we could use more of a playmaker to go along with wingers.
Don't get me wrong, I love them both but I've made this case on numerous occasions. Maybe in 2 or 3 years we'll get there when if a guy like Wennberg can maybe show his stuff - but he'll still be very green.
I have thought this through on many occasions.
Great another keeper of the $. The Blues got substantially better with this signing. They overpaid by at most a mill. The cap is going up. They have a couple of guys left to sign and have 9 mill in cap space. They are fine from a cap perspective. The object is to win and I think the Blues are going to do just fine in that department.
I didn't completely ignore Boll or Tropp, I mentioned [insert here] as in either of those. Assuming we sign Tropp and Johansen we have exactly 12 forwards. Throw in an FA signing and we have 13. Not a big deal if we rotate Boll/Tropp in and out of the lineup IMO, or if Tropp went to the AHL.Is there anything to make you believe that he's going to add a forward during FA? Or anyone for that matter. We already have 12 forwards (once our RFA's are signed). You completely ignored Boll as if he isn't on the team and you ignored Tropp who I think was qualified. We may not like these players but they exist. It's also clear that JK wants a forward spot open for a kid.
At least look at trades.
I absolutely am...thanks for defining me that way it's a complement. See Fro's recent post on our need to sign Joey this year and Dubi, Bob, Foligno next year. Yes I am firmly in the camp that having $ to spend on retaining those assets and having the space to make an acquisition for a "bigger fish" when one comes available later this year is far preferable. So we should overspend because the cap is going up. Sounds like solid planning BTW....the object is to win...Really? Thanks for the newsflash. Here's some 411 for you...sometimes not misspending $ on secondary assets, which this year's crop of FA largely was comprised of, is exactly how you win.
Play around with the cap for next year- I see Dubi at 6 (max), Joey at 5.5, Bob around 6.5-7.0 and Foligno around 4.5 (max or he is gone imo).
That is about 5 million more than this year where we look to wind up 8 mill or so under the cap(with Joey at 5.5 or so in that number). Throw in another 3-4 mill in combined raises for CAM & Calvert. That basically gets us to this year's cap.
Where is the problem?. And where pray tell is that "bigger fish" later in the season coming from? Pens going to dump Malkin? The Hawks Kane or Toews?
Although it is irrelevant now, we could have fit a suitable FA under the cap this year and not jeopardized our ability to re-sign the guys next year.