NHL Season 08-09

[Abraxas]

and after thinking about it, im not all that unhappy about it. pronger is the hammer that we missed all last year. i cant wait to see how he treats crosby and malkin. it's fitting that philly is the first eastern conference team he plays for.

i really liked Lupul but he was far too inconsistent, especailly towards the end of his tenure here. Sbisa also had a lot of promise, but it seems he played with a reckless abandon that the flyers didn't want to have to deal with right now.

Holmgren has made it quite clear that he wants to win now. so giving up the opportunity to try to mature Sbisa makes sense. and who are we kidding, he will be a flyer again someday.

as old and cheap as he may be, he's still got some good hockey in him.

[Arnwulf]

Lupul makes 4.25mil and Sbisa makes .875mil according to NHLnumbers.com. Pronger makes 6.25mil but is UFA after next year, Lupul had 3 more years left on his contract and Philly desperately wanted to unload his contract. As I said, salary dump, albeit not an immediate one. I can see Pronger being good for Philly though, he definitely fits in with their play style.

[Brill Weave]

I've been reading in a couple of different places that the Penguins are interested in Knuble. Not sure I like that. Reliable player, but also 37 years old. If we don't sign Guerin I'm willing to bet they will make a play on him.

[Arnwulf]

Looks like the Jackets are going to let Malhotra walk. All that time up on the 1st line last year really inflated his sense of value I fear. He's a great 3rd line center though, and I hate to lose him, let's hope we can use this opportunity to upgrade. John Madden has been mentioned as a possiblity.

[Brill Weave]

I think Malhotra is incredibly overrated. He wants a lot of money because he's been playing on the Jackets top two lines. Just because you play in the top six does not make you a top six forward. Malhotra is a classic example of this. John Madden is a great defensive forward, which is something Columbus does not need right now. Columbus needs a bonafide number one center for Rick Nash to work with. Not someone who is a marginal second liner at best. A player along the lines of Olli Jokinen would be fantastic for Rick Nash's career and for Columbus's postseason aspirations.

[Arnwulf]

Yeah, I'm mainly talking about John Madden for taking Manny Malhotra's 3rd line duties. For Centers next year we have Brassard coming back, he'll probably be our top line Center, then Vermette will probably Center the 2nd line. After that it's a toss up as far as Centers go.

I think a top line of Sedin - Sedin - Nash has an excellent ring to it lol.

[Brill Weave]

Ha good luck with that. I'm not sure what Columbus's salary cap status is. But I'm thinking that's just not going to happen lol.

[Arnwulf]

We've got plenty of room! But yeah, I'm only using that as my dream scenario. I see us shelling out decent money for a Defenseman in FA and then trading for a Center. I think Oduya is still available and I know he was on our radar.

[Brill Weave]

Oduya I'm not completely sold on yet. He's solid, but I'm not sure he is ready to make the jump to be a complete stud defenseman. The one huge plus in his favor is his low salary from last year. I don't think he's going to ask for a backbreaking amount of money. Now onto the center position. I don't think that Columbus would need to make a deal for one when there are plenty on the market as it stands. Most people tend to overlook a few of them but there are some pretty decent players available out there.

Just glancing at the list of UFA's here's a few names that would probably fit in well with Rick Nash and the Jackets.

Krystofer Kolanos - I know some of you are thinking wtf is wrong with you? Why would you say his name? My reasoning is as follows. Kolanos is a good peripheral player. He plays decent defense and is creative in the offensive zone. When he left Phoenix he was damaged having been tossed in against the other teams top defensive pairing. His confidence suffered and he never quite rebounded from it. He's definitely worth a look. And with a 500,000 dollar salary with no big raise expected, it's not like he's going to murder their salary cap.

Nik Antropov - I've never been a big fan of Antropov. But there's no denying what he brings to the table. He's a physical presence with a nose for the puck. The guy is a consistent goal scorer. He is probably one of the guys that would jump right into the line up and make an immediate impact.

Mike Cammalleri - A smaller guy. But when he plays his heart out, he's a beast. He's still young, only 27, and he's just really finding his scoring touch. He's looking like he's going to end up being one of those 30 goals 50 assist guys in the league. He got a good shot but he really does well in dishing the puck. If the Jackets ended up snagging Cammalleri it would be an awesome move.

Mike Comrie - Not a huge name. He's had some durability issues since coming into the league. The guy has decent numbers but most of the time he's playing hurt. If the Jackets could get him cheaper than 4.5 a year it could end up being a nice move.

In closing I would say just based on the UFA's I would target Cammelleri, Antropov, Comrie, Kolanos in that order.

[Arnwulf]

We've been chasing Cammalleri and Comrie off and on for 2 years now, it just seems like we can't quite get them. I'd love to see Nik Antropov here, he fits in very well with out system. Another player mentioned no the Bluejackets message board that I go to was Mike Sillenger as a replacement for Malhotra, he'd make about what Manny did last year and would definitely help, plus, he's been on the team before and everyone loved him.

[Brill Weave]

Sillinger is definitely a better face off man and he's still got some speed in him. I don't know if he would be a great replacement for Malhotra or not. He's a classy guy and he knows the game. But he's getting older. If they could get him cheap it wouldn't be a bad move.

[Ivaden]

Penguins resigned Adams today for $550k/year for two years. Willingly dropped his price to stay here, I like it. I thought he was a really good roleplayer for us during the playoffs, decent face-offs, excellent penalty killing. I have a feeling this'll lead to Dupuis being traded though, but I'm pretty indifferent about him anyway. I'd put Zigomanis at a higher priority than Dupuis to be honest, his face-off ability takes a lot of pressure off defensive zone puck drops. At least if that happens there'll be no more "You, Me, and Dupuis!!11!1!!1!!!" jokes on the jumbotron between periods. Worst jumbotron joke of them all.

[Ishido]

Guerin back with the Pens for 1 year, 2 mil.

In other news, Ed Belfour wants to come back to the NHL after a year in Sweden and a year not playing. He is now 44.

[Ivaden]

Guerin back with the Pens for 1 year, 2 mil.

... and I

jizzed

in

my pants.




With him resigning for so little, we should have a shot to resign Fedotanko and Scuderi as well. Scuderi has said he would allow the Penguins to have the last opportunity to offer him a deal over every other team, it seems like he wants to stay here but we'll see. I sure the fuck hope so.

[Ishido]

I would guess Scuderi will get offers of about 2.5-3 mil elsewhere, if he takes that kind of deal with the Pens they will be fucked for cap space and basically be signing league minimum contracts or close to it to fill the rest of the roster.
If both Fedotenko and Scuderi both take about 2 mil each, significant discounts from what they make/probably will make respectively, you have 3 league minimum contracts for your backups at each position. And of course very little room to account for injuries.

[Brill Weave]

As of so far the lowest offer Scuderi has received was 2.5 for 4 years. The highest was 4 for 4 years supposedly by our favorite blue shirts. As much as I would love him to stay, I just don't see it happening. When someone is willing to grossly overpay you, you take the fucking money.

[Brill Weave]

Montreal is now trying to throw money at the Sedins. Vancouver is supposedly attempting to match their offer.

[Arnwulf]

Interesting. Tomorrow is going to very interesting indeed. The Devils re-signed Oduya so now he's off our watch list. This is pretty much the first year that I have no idea what to expect from the Free Agent signings.

[Abraxas]

well, you can always expect the rangers to sign a shitload of people for alot of money, knowing full well they will fail

[Ivaden]

As much as I'd love to see Scuderi back, I think I'd prefer to see Fedotanko back, he really worked well with Malkin. Ben Lovejoy is NHL ready apparently according to a lot of people at the Penguins' forums that follow Wilkse-Barre/Scranton Penguins, and could be a decent replacement for Scuderi. Goligoski is ready, too, but that brings up the question how you make the defense pairings. I don't think I'd want to put Lovejoy and Goligoski together just because of the inexperience in the NHL, but I don't think I'd want to split up Orpik and Gonchar to spread some "veteran" experience throughout the pairings. I guess Goligoski and Gonchar aren't that different in terms of offensive ability and not-as-good defensive skill, but I dunno. Next few days are going to be fun to speculate.