It's sort of a kill two birds with one stone move. Pageau (or palmier) need to go before Dobson's next contract can get signed anyway and it will cost something to move them no matter what due to our cap situation. We're basically locked into going all out the next two years, I wouldn't expect to not move the picks.
I'd rather plus on a 1st to Pageau or Palmieri in order to receive back a young, underperforming (albeit cheap) player than 36 year old Giroux (who willingly signed in Ottawa...). Give me someone on the last year on the ELC or someone in the front half of a cheap bridge deal.
It would have to be a left field move in that sense. This ‘core’ has shown it doesn’t have it across two coaches. Time to rock the boat with a move or moves.
Giroux signed on believing they were trending up…they are not and he’s getting older.
It's more possible that he's just following the vision of the owner. No owner is going to tell a GM not to go all-in after deep playoff runs and a new arena. When you blame Lou, you are blaming the owners too. We don't own the team. We are just fans. You need to do more watching and less lamenting. It's an entertainment product, not cold fusion.
I hope I am too! No idea, but looking at things a bit differently vs same old, same old should be refreshing too. I just can’t see Lou giving more time for things to come together with so much evidence, it’s unlikely too.
Assuming the rumors of Roy getting a 3 year contract are true there might be 2 paths forward. For this year Lou may make a small move and hope for the new coach bump. After this season there could more significant moves with Lou making moves with Roy’s input.
That is a likely scenario, except that making serious moves is bloody hard with our contract situation. If anything, all the UFAs must be gone after the season or at the deadline. No extensions at all or at any cost. Then work hard at moving Palmieri but no team is gonna take our bad contracts and give us any value, so making moves will be very hard.
Huh? I get you would have liked to have never signed those contracts, but you are living in fantasy land if you think they are going to be bought out after year one. And the way you worded the sentence is like they should have been bought out during the offseason, when I'm guessing you meant never signed to new deals. I get the complaining, but proposing things that have never been done (except in the case of disciplinary things) is pretty silly and just looks like old man yelling at clouds syndrome. Things didn't go your way. Suggest viable fixes....
Buying them out makes no sense -
Want to point out that Pelech played less than Reilly and Aho last game. Two straight games at around 17:30, one of them with Romanov only playing 13 mins (so minutes were available). If we see a third straight game at around 17ish minutes it might tell us that his strengths might not line up with what Roy is preaching. Or maybe fresh eyes are seeing what a lot of us have pointed out - he hasn't been the same for a couple of years now. Roy also seems to have no problem playing Reilly as a 4, even playing him for 22 minutes against Toronto.
I think the limited minutes may just have to do with him getting healthy versus anything less - I could be wrong. IMO, Trading Pelech would not be a good idea without a replacement... Reilly is not that replacement. Buffalo needs help on the RH side of the blue line and would be looking for either that or a goalie.
We might be in that perfect spot where Pelech has the reputation from the playoff runs but teams may not have caught on that the injuries have started to take a toll. Leafs fan offering Marner for Pelech + Palmieri + 1st and Edmonton fan on main board saying they would "cream their pants" for him
This is a concept Lou has always struggled with. In a vacuum, these players are likely getting paid market value (term aside). Engvall would be an excellent 3rd line player. Mayfield, is an above average 3rd pair dman. This issue with a Lou team has always been not understanding what the team needs. The team did not need another 3rd line player, or a 3rd pair dman. Now I did not mind these two signings at the time. And to an extent, I still don't mind them. They are playing these players more than they should in roles that they don't belong in. Engvall is not a top 6 player. He just does not have the hockey IQ for such a role. Mayfield was playing top 4 minutes because of injuries.
