Cousin Eddie
You Serious Clark?
- Nov 3, 2006
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The Avs play 10 of the final 18 on the road down the stretch, Hejda will be away from his family more then he'll be close to them. He wouldn't have to move them as he can spend the next two months in a hotel like he's on a road trip and they can stay here.
Before last night's game they were 10 points out of a wild card spot, they made no moves to try to go for it now so why not try to obtain some assets? With Briere's playoff history I don't know how they couldn't eat 50% and get anything for him. Jokinen hasn't been to the playoffs much yet was traded to a contender. If you know you aren't making the playoffs selling UFA's off and giving young players a look is what you're supposed to do, you need to maximize your assets and see what you have in prospects. With Lake Erie not making the playoffs the kids down there aren't playing meaningful games so give a few a cup of coffee to see if they're NHL caliber and if not move on from them.
Well I don't really know Hejda and didn't have a discussion with him about how exactly his family would plan things but most likely he doesn't want to play with another team and if he was moved he likely wouldn't have promised to come back. You don't tell your family "k guys i'm leaving to work somewher else, I may get my original job back here in 6 months if i'm willing to take a huge pay cut after they shipped me out but it's not 100%. There may be other jobs opening up around the continent at that same time so really I have no idea what we're doing. But hey, i love ya. Call you when I get there"
There's a certain type of respect that goes into how you deal with veterans. If Sakic was given an offer that obviously adds some help to this team going forward i'm pretty sure he would have taken it.
As for Briere i'm guessing there was nobody who wanted him. Even Briere made it seem like he would have liked to be moved so I don't think there was anything holding Sakic back. He's an old guy who cant get into the lineup of a team who as you said is 10 points back of a wild card spot. Teams probably would rather spend 2 million of cap space elsewhere. Jokinen is a better hockey player than Briere and returned a 6th and a roster player. Colorado don't want any roster players and can just drop Briere's contract after this season.