Simple reason I think is ‘how many defensemen his size are starting on these Final Four teams?’ Didn’t we just eliminate a team with smaller D? How did Girard hold up against Vegas? The smaller defenses only get you so far.
My feeling is the Isles will try to get Cizikas not to ask for a raise or maybe ask him to take a little less money by sweetening his contract with a longer term like they did with Matt Martin.
I'm excited for Coskey and Bibeau. I understand they've incorporated a triple lutz into their free-skating program. Breathtaking!
yes i did. not bad considering they aren't a horrible org in the Q. also i think we lost the rights to coskey or bibeau
If some team offers Cizikas a raise then it's time to wish him godspeed. He should be a 10-15 goal scorer every year, but other than the 20 goal season he only hit 10 goals once otherwise it's been single digit goal totals. I love him here as a leader and a center who can kill penalties, but those kind of players should not make $4 million/year for only scoring 8 goals.
I'd love if he was like a tuch or even dadonov. Give me a power winger who can be a consistent scoring option
Conversely, come playoff time our 4th line impacts games, unlike most other 4th lines. Is that worth $7-8 million?
We had a legitimate offensive player on the taxi squad that could have been an asset in the goal scoring department, but the coach was enamored with the play of Zajac,Wahlstrom lost his spot in the lineup due to injury, if healthy he should have been in the lineup he's actually a game changer.
McDavid has been playing golf for weeks, so maybe we can get him cheap from EDM. According to the "bottom line" logic, anyway.
McDavid has been playing golf for weeks, so maybe we can get him cheap from EDM. According to the "bottom line" logic, anyway.
Trotz likes to roll 4 lines, so a strong 3rd and 4th line is important to him. And it's not just about scoring - the Isles' 4th line wears down the opposition (ask Brandon Carlo). So you let Cizikas walk to save, what, $1-2 million after you pay his replacement? At what cost? Sometimes the reasons for winning aren't obvious. Joe Torre's Yankees wore down opposing teams because their hitters were patient and had good eyes and got starters' pitch counts up and got to the bullpen. And the Yankees had a great bullpen, so they'd always win the last couple of innings.
Getting Lee back and the maturing of Wahlstrom, Dobson, Beauvillier and even Barzal will go a long way. I trust Lou to make the right moves, but we'll see.
McDavid has been playing golf for weeks, so maybe we can get him cheap from EDM. According to the "bottom line" logic, anyway.
Trotz likes to roll 4 lines, so a strong 3rd and 4th line is important to him. And it's not just about scoring - the Isles' 4th line wears down the opposition (ask Brandon Carlo). So you let Cizikas walk to save, what, $1-2 million after you pay his replacement? At what cost? Sometimes the reasons for winning aren't obvious. Joe Torre's Yankees wore down opposing teams because their hitters were patient and had good eyes and got starters' pitch counts up and got to the bullpen. And the Yankees had a great bullpen, so they'd always win the last couple of innings.
Getting Lee back and the maturing of Wahlstrom, Dobson, Beauvillier and even Barzal will go a long way. I trust Lou to make the right moves, but we'll see.
You had me until the Nielsen/Okposo comment. I was fine with both of them leaving at the time. Nielsen was a nice player for us but in the playoff years against WAS and then PIT he showed he was not a playoff warrior (and made gaffes at crucial times in both series [edit: it may have been WAS, not TB, with the gaffe - Kuznetsov goal I think] ). And KO seemed like a great guy but was a puck management disaster.
