2010 NHL Offseason Thread

[Ishido]

Broken sticks FFFFUUUUUU-

Also Toews is going to be on the cover, but if the leaked cover is anything to go on they chose a terrible picture (this seems to be a reoccurring problem for him...).

[Thoronas]

Also Toews is going to be on the cover, but if the leaked cover is anything to go on they chose a terrible picture (this seems to be a reoccurring problem for him...).

Could be worse

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...onas/toews.jpg

[isladar]

The broken stick thing made me kinda wtf, but holy hell at all the hits, that was pretty rad.

[Melena]

How has the NHL series been lately? I haven't played since 03 when I got let go from EA and a lot of the reviews had it going down hill for a few years, so decided to not waste any money on it.

[Callisto]

How has the NHL series been lately? I haven't played since 03 when I got let go from EA and a lot of the reviews had it going down hill for a few years, so decided to not waste any money on it.

04-08 sucked, since 09 it's been making a huge comeback, if I'm not mistaken 10 won sports GOTY. They've done a lot with the controls that make it more interesting to play.

[isladar]

Calli what have you been reading besides Puck Daddy again? I tried finding some blogs but most of what I came across was team-specific and while I'd love to sit and jerk off to the 'Hawks I kinda want to have some news.

Also I sort of understand the whole salary cap thing, but it seems really fucked up that it's likely a lot of these teams are going to get shuffled around. Like seriously? We're gonna dump Hossa? I don't get that at all.

[Callisto]

For straight news I use:

The Hockey News

NHL.com

For the hockey version of The Onion there's Down Goes Brown

[Callisto]

As far as the salary cap & trade rumors, I personally think we'll keep Hossa, but of all the guys who have large contracts on the Hawks he has the most trade value.

A while back Detroit started a practice of enticing guys to sign super-long contracts that they didn't really plan on playing all the way through. The contracts would pay out the bulk of the cash in the first few years then taper off in pay...since a contract's salary cap hit is just the total amount of the contract divided by the number of years, the longer the contract, the easier it is on the cap. If the guy retires before playing out his 10-15 years on the contract, the team gets to save some cash on the years they don't have to pay out, and his cap hit comes off the books. The Hawks signed Hossa to something similar, so he makes a lot of money currently, but doesn't have that bad of a cap hit.

Cristobal Huet(the backup goalie) and Brian Campbell are the other two expendable players with large contracts the team has, but the only one some other teams might be interested in acquiring in a trade is Hossa. There's a chance that someone may be interested in taking on Campbell's contract if the Hawks throw in some future draft picks/prospects/cash to sweeten the deal, but he's not going to be in super-high demand. Noone will want Huet, he's unfortunately going to be buried into the minors, the Hawks will still have to pay out his 5.6m cash for the next two years, but he won't count against their cap at least.

[Thoronas]

Man if Hossa gets traded after switching teams every year I would seriously lol. I personally think someone will take Huet's contract off their hands.

[Callisto]

I wouldn't be surprised if someone made a trade offer for Hossa at this point, the last 3 years it's pretty much a 100% correlation of get Hossa > go to SCF

[isladar]

Coming from a very new perspective, like.. I remember the names of Hawks from the 90s, because they were there so long. It just seems kind of chauncy to shuffle the deck so much so that these names don't have a chance to sink in, be a team for the fans, you know?

Also, because of the SC do the Hawks automatically have last pick for the draft?

[Callisto]

Yeah, the 14 teams that don't make the playoffs get entered into a weighted lottery that decides the 1-14 order, then the 16 playoff teams get added in based on what place they finish.

And it's not so much a choice deal for the Hawks in regards to dismantling the team. The cap is going to be in the 58.8m~ range, they only have 14 players signed and are already sitting at like 56.9m~, you need 18 just to field a team not counting the backups that don't actively dress for a game. Just to actually have a team they're going to have to drop a solid chunk of salary, right now the most likely people to not be back are Huet to the minors, Versteeg being traded, and possibly Sharp being traded.

[isladar]

What the fuck, I love saying Versteeg, they can't take that away from me.

[Callisto]

The worst is how Versteeg pronounces his own name, idk why he goes super-appalachian and is like "Hi, I'm Kris VEEER-STEGGG"

[Thoronas]

The Blackhawks are even more fucked than you know. The bonuses to Toews and Kane in the playoffs count towards the salary cap and the Hawks went over the cap by about 4 million or so. When that happens it comes off their cap the following year. Meaning they have 4 million less than the other teams to work with.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sport...obe-on-hockey/

[Ishido]

Coming from a very new perspective, like.. I remember the names of Hawks from the 90s, because they were there so long. It just seems kind of chauncy to shuffle the deck so much so that these names don't have a chance to sink in, be a team for the fans, you know?

Also, because of the SC do the Hawks automatically have last pick for the draft?

It's the owners/GMs fault if a team loses players or they shift around a lot. The salary cap makes it harder to maintain, but it is still doable.

Also the other SCF correlation is that the road team in the Winter Classic is currently batting 1.000 in losing the SCF.

[Callisto]

The Blackhawks are even more fucked than you know. The bonuses to Toews and Kane in the playoffs count towards the salary cap and the Hawks went over the cap by about 4 million or so. When that happens it comes off their cap the following year. Meaning they have 4 million less than the other teams to work with.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sport...obe-on-hockey/

I'm pretty sure that the TG&M numbers were off and the bonus spillover is closer than 2m, but yeah, it's not going to hurt anything. And compared to teams who can't even afford to spend to the cap limit, they could be in worse shape.

[Thoronas]

Also the other SCF correlation is that the road team in the Winter Classic is currently batting 1.000 in losing the SCF.

So that means Washington is going to the Stanley cup finals in 2011? Naaaaah

[Callisto]

As far as ideal solutions, a team like Colorado who has a pretty similar structure to the Hawks minus a few cogs may be looking to build around similar lines and has a ton of cap space. They could be a potential taker for Campbell, and I wouldn't be surprised to see Dale Tallon bring Versteeg to the Panthers. Huet's going to be the top goaltender of the AHL next year lol, or at the very least the highest paid.

One sucky thing is that Kyle Beach, who would be a slight step up from Eager or Burish talent-wise is waiting in Rockford, but he costs more than either player. Madden is probably gone, and Sopel is probably trade bait, which sucks because this past season he really earned his pay. Losing Versteeg shouldn't be too bad as they have Bickell and Skille as RFAs that they can bring back on the cheap, both are pretty talented and dying to get out of Rockford.

The biggest kink I can see is if some other team gets saucy with the Hawks' RFAs and tosses an offer sheet that they can't match for someone like Hjalmarsson or Ladd.

[Callisto]

I'm also curious if the Oilers could maybe swing trading down to the Bruins and milking an extra lower draft pick out of them, giving up Hall and taking Seguin. I know Hall's the better overall player, but the Oilers really need a center to build around just as much as a standout forward.