Fire Ken Holland: 2022-2023 edition

[McDNicks17]

Re-signing Pulju/Yamo isn't the issue. It would have been stupid not to.

The issue is waiting until you absolutely have to move them to actually move them. Bad GMs get out of those types of deals all the time while getting value back because some sucker of a GM sees a twinkle of potential and thinks they can fix them.

That's been one of Holland's biggest problems. Sitting on his hands until it's too late. Hell, we spent an entire offseason hearing about Eastern Conference teams calling about Kassian. Holland declined and a year later he's giving up picks to get rid of him.

 

[duul]

Good lord man. Ignored by whom? There’s a twenty page thread on that very topic. You’ve spoke of little else for the past week.

How difficult is it to comprehend that Kostin was walking out the door anyway? The team did not have the money to meet his salary demands. That is completely separate and unrelated to whatever happened with Yamamoto. Just because the two of them were moved to the same club it doesn’t mean that Yamamoto’s departure was purchased at the cost of Kostin. From Detroit’s viewpoint it may be so, but we aren’t Wings fans here. Once Kostin set his price at $2, he wasn’t coming back here no matter what.

It appears that Kostin didn’t want to be in Edmonton, so I really don’t understand all the bleating and blaming going on over the past week. It’s getting to be a bit much. I don’t even think you cried this hard when Taylor Hall left.


This is fair. This is the reason the team can’t sign good value players like Kostin. It has nothing whosoever to do with comparatively minor contracts handed out to the likes of Yamamoto and Puljujarvi.

I see it as death by a thousand cuts, and a few bombs going off, haha.

Holland did some good and some bad. Something like a 50/50 hit or miss rate. Does anyone disagree with that? 50/50 gets you nowhere in this league. 50/50 gets you in the predicament we see ourselves in now. There is no conceivable way to get out of this mess. Far and away the most unbalanced group in the league now if that wasn't made apparent since McDavid got drafted. How many years is that now with opportunities to shore up defensive spots and goaltending?

I make a claim and stand by that last year our best defenceman was Cody Ceci followed by Brett Kulak. Again, does anyone disagree with that? I would find it hard to. Let's consider where we got these two players. One of them was healthy scratched by one of the worst defensive groups on earth in Montreal and the other was a third pairing, low minutes guy in Pittsburgh, who coincidentally also have one of the worst defensive groups in the league. They come in here and in contrast to the utter dog shit we have they lead the way. They are relied upon, lmao. That was the moment when I realized that there is no comparable -- we have the worst defence in the entire league. Advanced stats may say we are a bit above that, but that is driven by factors related to milking these metrics with the infamous flip out of our own zone play that only WE seem to resort to. Did you ever see Vegas defencemen getting the puck and flipping it into the jumbotron in pure panic 30 times a game? I didn't. I saw ours doing that though.

Guess I'm sort of rambling this morning, got myself one of those nice new coffee makers that do all the fancy stuff and grind the beans all in one etc. Blessed. Point is, Nurse can be injured for the entire year and we can fill his spot with a minor leaguer who will not cost us many more goals against. I wouldn't pay Nurse 6 million a year, do you agree?

 

[Sra1974]

You can discuss them all you want. However, there’s no ‘learning’ to be done here. Other posters have spelled out clearly why Yamamoto and Puljujarvi were re-signed. If you want to believe that other GMs would walk away from young twenties first round draft picks (one of which was a top 5 pick, and the other who had just scored 20 goals) you can feel free to do so. Personally I don’t recall those sorts of moves being made around the league. I’d love to see some examples though if you’d like to provide them.

Holland has made mistakes for sure. Some serious ones. The re-signings of Yamamoto and Puljujarvi barely register on that list and posters complaining about it have their captain hindsight hats on.

Hmmm, interesting thought that nothing can be learned here. What I see happening too often with the Oilers is turning assets into something with zero value, or worse, negative value. Maybe I just don’t pay close enough attention to other teams to see it happens just as often with them too.

Look I’m of The opinion that in the grand scheme of things the individual signings of Yamamoto and Puljujarvi aren’t that meaningful. But in the aggregate, to use your words we managed to take young twenty first rounders and grind Their worth around the league to nothing. I guess the point of some of this is to say thats probably not good asset management and yes in hindsight(gasp) there maybe were definite paths, and those are interesting to discuss for me.

 

[harpoon]

But in the aggregate, to use your words we managed to take young twenty first rounders and grind Their worth around the league to nothing. I guess the point of some of this is to say thats probably not good asset management and yes in hindsight(gasp) there maybe were definite paths, and those are interesting to discuss for me.

There’s some truth there for sure. But I would argue that Puljujarvi ‘ground down’ his own value to almost nothing by producing very little and acting like a headcase for three years. Yamamoto probably should have been traded while he was in the process of scoring 20 goals. Maybe you are right that a smarter GM would have looked at his cap space, evaluated the player’s relative strengths and weaknesses and realized that he wasn’t going to be able to get this player under contract at an acceptable number commensurate with his contributions to winning. I think that would have been a bold move, but you’re not wrong to suggest that we have the right to expect those kinds of moves from the highest paid GM in the league.

I’ll stick with my assertion though that once those players walked to RFA, Holland did what other GMs do in 99% of similar cases and re-signed them.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Good lord man. Ignored by whom? There’s a twenty page thread on that very topic. You’ve spoke of little else for the past week.

How difficult is it to comprehend that Kostin was walking out the door anyway? The team did not have the money to meet his salary demands. That is completely separate and unrelated to whatever happened with Yamamoto. Just because the two of them were moved to the same club it doesn’t mean that Yamamoto’s departure was purchased at the cost of Kostin. From Detroit’s viewpoint it may be so, but we aren’t Wings fans here. Once Kostin set his price at $2, he wasn’t coming back here no matter what.

It appears that Kostin didn’t want to be in Edmonton, so I really don’t understand all the bleating and blaming going on over the past week. It’s getting to be a bit much. I don’t even think you cried this hard when Taylor Hall left.


This is fair. This is the reason the team can’t sign good value players like Kostin. It has nothing whosoever to do with comparatively minor contracts handed out to the likes of Yamamoto and Puljujarvi.

It isn't my impression that Kostin was walking out the door anyways. Its my impression that trouble started with the headcoach refulsing to grant the player minutes and Healthy scratching the player repeatedly during regular season. Kostin was the best trade win we saw in years. Now gone after one year due to Holland writing himself into contractual hell.
Holland back to throwing a bunch of league iminium contracts around trying to fill out a roster on the cheap, A tactic he was forced to do for years early in his tenure because Chia put the team in cap hell. This time Holland has done it to himself. The fact that we have Drake Caggiuslia coming back, players of that ilk is almost satirical.

I've supported Holland for the most part through the years but this offseason has been everything Detroit fans warned us about and ironically Detroit benefitting from it.

But I've lost the script man. For sure I was devastated when Chia dealt Hall. But this offseason has me feeling more like a Chia offseason than anything Holland has done. I dont' see the plan at this point, and I don't know there is one that makes a lot of sense.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Hmmm, interesting thought that nothing can be learned here. What I see happening too often with the Oilers is turning assets into something with zero value, or worse, negative value. Maybe I just don’t pay close enough attention to other teams to see it happens just as often with them too.

Look I’m of The opinion that in the grand scheme of things the individual signings of Yamamoto and Puljujarvi aren’t that meaningful. But in the aggregate, to use your words we managed to take young twenty first rounders and grind Their worth around the league to nothing. I guess the point of some of this is to say thats probably not good asset management and yes in hindsight(gasp) there maybe were definite paths, and those are interesting to discuss for me.

Agreed with this and the headcoach or coaching staff should see some blame in this. All of Kostin, Pulju, Yams, McLeod going down has been under this coaching staff. Additionally Holloway, Broberg, Bourgault, Nemo are being stymied by the coach refusal to utilize these players. Arguably the only young prospect to appreciate during the current coaching realm is Bouchard. The only one. Increasingly we're going back to vet minimum contracts instead of developing youth. Holland has signed several of those just this week. Hopefully for Bakersfield but with this coaching staff I'm spotting possibility where a lot of our youth continue to be buried or get token minutes.

"In the aggregate" is good wording, thanks for your post.

 

[SwedishFire]

I see it as death by a thousand cuts, and a few bombs going off, haha.

Holland did some good and some bad. Something like a 50/50 hit or miss rate. Does anyone disagree with that? 50/50 gets you nowhere in this league. 50/50 gets you in the predicament we see ourselves in now. There is no conceivable way to get out of this mess. Far and away the most unbalanced group in the league now if that wasn't made apparent since McDavid got drafted. How many years is that now with opportunities to shore up defensive spots and goaltending?

I make a claim and stand by that last year our best defenceman was Cody Ceci followed by Brett Kulak. Again, does anyone disagree with that? I would find it hard to. Let's consider where we got these two players. One of them was healthy scratched by one of the worst defensive groups on earth in Montreal and the other was a third pairing, low minutes guy in Pittsburgh, who coincidentally also have one of the worst defensive groups in the league. They come in here and in contrast to the utter dog shit we have they lead the way. They are relied upon, lmao. That was the moment when I realized that there is no comparable -- we have the worst defence in the entire league. Advanced stats may say we are a bit above that, but that is driven by factors related to milking these metrics with the infamous flip out of our own zone play that only WE seem to resort to. Did you ever see Vegas defencemen getting the puck and flipping it into the jumbotron in pure panic 30 times a game? I didn't. I saw ours doing that though.

Guess I'm sort of rambling this morning, got myself one of those nice new coffee makers that do all the fancy stuff and grind the beans all in one etc. Blessed. Point is, Nurse can be injured for the entire year and we can fill his spot with a minor leaguer who will not cost us many more goals against. I wouldn't pay Nurse 6 million a year, do you agree?⁹

Nurse gives Oilers some grit at the back, but he aint a #1 D man. If Oilers needs to cut salary, it him or E Kane for me to let go.

About Neimilainen, VD, Broberg ; They needto showthey belong. Otherwisw they need to get traded for assetswhile value is there. Dont do puljujärvi, Yamamoto waiting no more.

I could only see Broberg becoming something that sticks.
I would like to see a Nurse - Kulak, Broberg - Ceci pairing.

 

[Kanedogg]

Kostin wanted too much money to be here. We can argue about whether you think he'll be worth 2mil or more next season but it's all speculation.

The facts are that Holland dumped Yamo's 3.1mil at the cost of a player who likely wasn't coming back, and by all reports was leveraging a KHL exodus to get what he wanted.

People are really overstating the impact Kostin has on the roster. It's not a make or break loss for the team.

Detroit has all the cap room in the world. Who's to say he wouldn't sign here at 1.5 million?

The same people insisting were "overstating the impact of kostin" are ecstatic over Ryan here 2 more years.

Both are bottom 6 options and because of poor cap management had to throw away a perfectly good bottom 6 player.

 

[Kanedogg]

but you've would've been cool with Holland overpaying Kostin for a couple years?

Overpaying? I'd be cool with kostin getting what he's worth. We're in a bizarre situation we can't pay players like McLeod, Bouchard, kostin etc what they are worth because of bad mistakes overpaying other players year after year by Holland cap wise.

 

[GOilers88]

Detroit has all the cap room in the world. Who's to say he wouldn't sign here at 1.5 million?

The same people insisting were "overstating the impact of kostin" are ecstatic over Ryan here 2 more years.

Both are bottom 6 options and because of poor cap management had to throw away a perfectly good bottom 6 player.

I can be happy to have Ryan back, and not shouting from the rooftops that we lost Kostin. Doesn't mean I don't like Kostin. But he played hardball with contract negotiations and Holland moved on.

People losing sleep over Kostin are just way too hyper focused on the whole thing. There's lots of good bottom six options out there. They'll be fine. Really, losing Kostin isn't worth getting so worked up about.

 

[Kanedogg]

It isn't my impression that Kostin was walking out the door anyways. Its my impression that trouble started with the headcoach refulsing to grant the player minutes and Healthy scratching the player repeatedly during regular season. Kostin was the best trade win we saw in years. Now gone after one year due to Holland writing himself into contractual hell.
Holland back to throwing a bunch of league iminium contracts around trying to fill out a roster on the cheap, A tactic he was forced to do for years early in his tenure because Chia put the team in cap hell. This time Holland has done it to himself. The fact that we have Drake Caggiuslia coming back, players of that ilk is almost satirical.

I've supported Holland for the most part through the years but this offseason has been everything Detroit fans warned us about and ironically Detroit benefitting from it.

But I've lost the script man. For sure I was devastated when Chia dealt Hall. But this offseason has me feeling more like a Chia offseason than anything Holland has done. I dont' see the plan at this point, and I don't know there is one that makes a lot of sense.

Agree, it's well past the time to blame chia. This is all on Holland. In fact our best 2 contracts are the only 2 left from chia.

I'd say chia drafted better than Holland but was the worst ever at making trades. He did better than Holland writing contracts as well.

I can be happy to have Ryan back, and not shouting from the rooftops that we lost Kostin. Doesn't mean I don't like Kostin. But he played hardball with contract negotiations and Holland moved on.

People losing sleep over Kostin are just way too hyper focused on the whole thing. There's lots of good bottom six options out there. They'll be fine. Really, losing Kostin isn't worth getting so worked up about.

Yourebconflating people factually stating we lost a solid bottom 6 player with "getting worked up".

It's a fact and it's hilarious to hear some fans try and twist knots to apparently insist he's super easy to replace.

For years this team has struggled mightily because of its bottom 6. An older Ryan, drake caggulia add and lose of bjugstad doesn't help.

 

[GOilers88]

Agree, it's well past the time to blame chia. This is all on Holland. In fact our best 2 contracts are the only 2 left from chia.

I'd say chia drafted better than Holland but was the worst ever at making trades. He did better than Holland writing contracts as well.



Yourebconflating people factually stating we lost a solid bottom 6 player with "getting worked up".

It's a fact and it's hilarious to hear some fans try and twist knots to apparently insist he's super easy to replace.

For years this team has struggled mightily because of its bottom 6. An older Ryan, drake caggulia add and lose of bjugstad doesn't help.

They did lose a good bottom sixer. They also dumped 3.1mil in caps pace in the process, allowing them to upgrade on Yamamoto.

 

[Drivesaitl]

Agree, it's well past the time to blame chia. This is all on Holland. In fact our best 2 contracts are the only 2 left from chia.

I'd say chia drafted better than Holland but was the worst ever at making trades. He did better than Holland writing contracts as well.

Holland is mostly awful at writing contracts. I'm hardpressed to come up with any good one. Or any discount one for any significant player. Can't say Nuge because we gave far more in term. Ah well, maybe Nuge will be shaving by then.

Some other posters, @Soundwave was speaking about how the next GM is gonna be fooked. Yeah. In a year or two even the Hyman, nuge contracts start looking bad, the Nurse one looking horrible. Seems like always an overpay and often with too much term. Then he has to addon several contract minimums just to fill out a roster. I'm beyond tired of the latter.

its beyond the pale that Holland has f***ed himself over. One would think he knows what a cap strapped situation is by now. He gets a pass for the Chia handoff, but he sure doesn't now.

 

[Drivesaitl]

They did lose a good bottom sixer. They also dumped 3.1mil in caps pace in the process, allowing them to upgrade on Yamamoto.

This can't be a plus as Holland signed the deal. Theres hardly anybody here that wasn't critiquing the Yams contract in some way. Either money or term or in my case both...lol

Yams was actually worth something in trade by the time he'd had his outlier 20 goal season. With mounting injuries, concussions, and the team privy to that, it was time to cut bait. The Concussion landscape alone wasn't going to get better. Yams would have to defy physics, gravity, and medical science not to have had continued concussion and bell rung sequences. With how he plays it was a given the problems would continue.

 

[Slats432]

I don't like the revisionist history heaped on KH. Two players are overpaid. Campbell and Nurse. No one else is crazy overpaid, and what was his option last year in FA for goalies? Kuemper, Campbell and junk. 2022 NHL Free Agents Tracker

Nurse signed at the top of his market. It is a tough pill, but part of that is he is part of the leadership group that include 97 and 29 and would be pretty integral in helping to keep them here. Everyone else is a pretty decent deal.

What are we talking here, an extra $500K on Foegele? Not sure he needs to be flogged here. He isn't perfect, but his batting average isn't terrible.

 

[Soundwave]

I don't like the revisionist history heaped on KH. Two players are overpaid. Campbell and Nurse. No one else is crazy overpaid, and what was his option last year in FA for goalies? Kuemper, Campbell and junk. 2022 NHL Free Agents Tracker

Nurse signed at the top of his market. It is a tough pill, but part of that is he is part of the leadership group that include 97 and 29 and would be pretty integral in helping to keep them here. Everyone else is a pretty decent deal.

What are we talking here, an extra $500K on Foegele? Not sure he needs to be flogged here. He isn't perfect, but his batting average isn't terrible.

You don't have room for even two overpaid players, but I would add also Foegele is overpaid for what he does, not to mention we are also carrying almost 2 mill in dead cap thanks to Neal/Lucic on top of that.

You don't have this much margin of error, when you look at most contending teams they have maybe a little dead salary and maybe 1 bad contract, but not like 3 of them + $2 million in dead cap + we have a $12+ million salary. Now McDavid is worth it, but it's still a big chunk of our cap.

Razor sharp cap management is needed, we're more like a butter knife.

 

[Drivesaitl]

I don't like the revisionist history heaped on KH. Two players are overpaid. Campbell and Nurse. No one else is crazy overpaid, and what was his option last year in FA for goalies? Kuemper, Campbell and junk. 2022 NHL Free Agents Tracker

Nurse signed at the top of his market. It is a tough pill, but part of that is he is part of the leadership group that include 97 and 29 and would be pretty integral in helping to keep them here. Everyone else is a pretty decent deal.

What are we talking here, an extra $500K on Foegele? Not sure he needs to be flogged here. He isn't perfect, but his batting average isn't terrible.

I used to think this too. But the moment where Drai is yelling at Nurse not to do anything stupid, and that he's fine, and Nurse tumbles over the boards, loses his shit and promptly gets suspended is troubling and mainly because it isn't Nurse first rodeo at this. Darnell is a vet player now that needs to be smarter but doesn't look like that is coming anytime soon. Still, not worth the contract in anycase. Hyman too much term because we had to. Nuge way too much term for no discernible reason. After a sparkling Nuge year this will seem like odd point but likely won't in a couple of years and we have forever left in Nuge contract.

i think Ekholm being here in itself is acknowledgment that Nurse is never getting there to what we want and its an impossible contract to trade. I'm a Nurse fan saying all this.

 

[GOilers88]

This can't be a plus as Holland signed the deal. Theres hardly anybody here that wasn't critiquing the Yams contract in some way. Either money or term or in my case both...lol

Yams was actually worth something in trade by the time he'd had his outlier 20 goal season. With mounting injuries, concussions, and the team privy to that, it was time to cut bait. The Concussion landscape alone wasn't going to get better. Yams would have to defy physics, gravity, and medical science not to have had continued concussion and bell rung sequences. With how he plays it was a given the problems would continue.

We can debate about whether so and so should have been traded there and then, but that's really just an exercise in futility.

With strict regards to Kostin, yah I hate to see him go, and it sucks that he was the cost to get out from Yamo. But Yamo was replaced by a better player in the process, and it's yet to be seen if Kostin is really worth 2 million a year. Only time will tell, and everything else is just noise.

The team made a couple of trades for depth guys like Kostin and Bjugstad, which is what contenders do every year. They'll do the same thing again this year, and likely shore up the blue line again at the deadline. I just don't see the need to get so worked up over Kostin.

If you think he's some massive impact player that changes games then that's your opinion and I won't hold it against you. I just think he can, and will be replaced. Likely internally by Holloway, and for much cheaper.

 

[Kanedogg]

They did lose a good bottom sixer. They also dumped 3.1mil in caps pace in the process, allowing them to upgrade on Yamamoto.

The problem is the bottom 6. It's great brown will get to stat pad with close friend mcdavid. 2/3rds of the game mcdavid is on the bench and the bottom 6 has not improved.

Holland is mostly awful at writing contracts. I'm hardpressed to come up with any good one. Or any discount one for any significant player. Can't say Nuge because we gave far more in term. Ah well, maybe Nuge will be shaving by then.

Some other posters, @Soundwave was speaking about how the next GM is gonna be fooked. Yeah. In a year or two even the Hyman, nuge contracts start looking bad, the Nurse one looking horrible. Seems like always an overpay and often with too much term. Then he has to addon several contract minimums just to fill out a roster. I'm beyond tired of the latter.

its beyond the pale that Holland has f***ed himself over. One would think he knows what a cap strapped situation is by now. He gets a pass for the Chia handoff, but he sure doesn't now.

Another key point is when Holland is gone this year staios is going to be the sacrificial lamb if he can't give drai what he wants contract wise. So yeah for sure next gm is stepping into mess.

 

[Drivesaitl]

We can debate about whether so and so should have been traded there and then, but that's really just an exercise in futility.

With strict regards to Kostin, yah I hate to see him go, and it sucks that he was the cost to get out from Yamo. But Yamo was replaced by a better player in the process, and it's yet to be seen if Kostin is really worth 2 million a year. Only time will tell, and everything else is just noise.

The team made a couple of trades for depth guys like Kostin and Bjugstad, which is what contenders do every year. They'll do the same thing again this year, and likely shore up the blue line again at the deadline. I just don't see the need to get so worked up over Kostin.

If you think he's some massive impact player that changes games then that's your opinion and I won't hold it against you. I just think he can, and will be replaced. Likely internally by Holloway, and for much cheaper.

Everything posted online is an exercise in futility.

I'm doing this because its cold and grey outside yet again. Really no other reason at this time of year.

I think Kostin if Detroit is serious in using him will bag 20G this year and do all the punching/hitting he usually does.

Kostin isn't a throwaway. Several pundits had him topten in draft year. Interestingly he was always touted to have very good talent and shot. People at the time were saying his drawback was he needs to be more physical, which is interesting, as he's certainly responded to that criticism. He's a talent, and he plays hard and nails which I love. I'm different than most folks in that I also loved Raffi Torres. We all have our different likes.

Kostin, this is the worse Scenario, could be the reverse of the Joe Murphy scenario. Not in the pts sense but in the scoring goals sense. Murphy was a much better puck mover and pure sexy with the puck. I loved Joe here.

please don't say Shore again.

 

[Slats432]

I used to think this too. But the moment where Drai is yelling at Nurse not to do anything stupid, and that he's fine, and Nurse tumbles over the boards, loses his shit and promptly gets suspended is troubling and mainly because it isn't Nurse first rodeo at this. Darnell is a vet player now that needs to be smarter but doesn't look like that is coming anytime soon. Still, not worth the contract in anycase. Hyman too much term because we had to. Nuge way too much term for no discernible reason. After a sparkling Nuge year this will seem like odd point but likely won't in a couple of years and we have forever left in Nuge contract.

i think Ekholm being here in itself is acknowledgment that Nurse is never getting there to what we want and its an impossible contract to trade. I'm a Nurse fan saying all this.

I don't disagree with anything you said, but sometimes you are Lou signing Horvat...

 

[Soundwave]

Not ideal (at all), but what would happen if the Oilers put Nurse on LTIR around the trade deadline or something?

Would Brown's cap penalty carry forward into next season, or some portion of it?

 

[McShogun99]

2nd place in the Pacific in each of the 4 years that Holland has been in charge. got past the first round the past 2 years and people still complain about Holland. The previous GM had us miss the playoffs for 3 out of 4 years and handcuffed the team with contracts like Koskinen and Lucic.

Holland inherited this roster and turned it into a contending team. There's only 3 forwards and 1 Dmen from that roster on todays team. That's a huge turnover in 4 years.

RNH-Mcdavid-Rattie
Reider-Draisaitl-Yamamoto
Lucic-Brodziak-JP
Spooner-Khaira-Kassian

Nurse-Larsson
Russell-Benning
Manning-Petrovic

Talbot
Koskinen

Holland has made his mistakes. I'm not a fan of his first round selections since he took over and he bumbled the Nurse contract but everything else has been above average so far. I'll give Campbell 1 more season before I fully judge that deal but so far it's not looking good.

 

[GOilers88]

The problem is the bottom 6. It's great brown will get to stat pad with close friend mcdavid. 2/3rds of the game mcdavid is on the bench and the bottom 6 has not improved.



Another key point is when Holland is gone this year staios is going to be the sacrificial lamb if he can't give drai what he wants contract wise. So yeah for sure next gm is stepping into mess.

Brown is an excellent penalty killer. Something Kostin was not. Brown isn't just going to "stat pad" and nothing else. He's a versatile player who can play up and down the lineup.

Foegele - McLeod - Janmark
Holloway - Ryan - ?

Is not some devoid of talent bottom six. Could they use another body or two? Sure, and they still could add one. There's also the possibility someone from Bako looks good out of camp like Hamblin, Lavoie, Bourgault or Tullio. The team hasn't taken a step back. Guys like Bjugstad get picked up every year by teams making a run and replaced every year. That's what most depth deadline acquisitions are. They'll do it again this season too. I think you think the roster is somehow way worse than it is.

 

[CantHaveTkachev]

Overpaying? I'd be cool with kostin getting what he's worth. We're in a bizarre situation we can't pay players like McLeod, Bouchard, kostin etc what they are worth because of bad mistakes overpaying other players year after year by Holland cap wise.

Kostin, who has 16 goals TOTAL in 103 games in the NHL, is not worth 2 million
that's an overpayment for what he brings...he doesn't PK, he isn't used on the PP and is a bottom 6 player who has a good shot and plays physical once and awhile