2010 NHL Offseason Thread

[Sepukku]

cool story bro

What? You doubt me? How hard can it be to get 60+ assists passing to Ovechicken, Semen, Green, etc? If Staal went to the net he could dominate for them. Remember how they had no net presence against Montreal and couldn't score on the PP?

Staal would just be a major improvement over Mike where the fuck is my walker Knuble. He's just as tough, he's bigger, he's faster, he's younger and he's a lot better defensively. This ain't trolling, this is just you morons refusing to accept that maybe Staal only gets 50 points/season cause he plays on a third line behind two other world class centers and doesn't even get 1st-unit PP time and maybe that Backstrom only gets 90+ points a season cause he's playing with a bunch of offensively blessed all stars everytime he takes the ice with the 1st line / 1st PP unit. Do you really think if Backstrom went to, say, Minnesota, he'd put up 101 points again this season?

[Makaveli]

I think they still wanted someone over Boucher to do a 1a/1b with but now that I see their cap space they're probably going to stick with those two again. Speaking of Philly goalies, wondering if anyone's going to give Emery another shot this year, I really like him

Last I heard about Emery was that he had some real bad hip injury that most people would be lucky to walk again after having.

[Selamis]

What the hell, Turco is a trending topic on Twitter lol.

[Brill Weave]

Selamis as one of our resident Chicagoans I need to ask. On a scale from 1 - 10 how painful is the dismantling of the Hawks? If it happened here in Pittsburgh right after they won the cup I would have fucking bombed Mellon Arena.

[Selamis]

I'd put it at a 7.5. Going into the season, no matter if we won or not, we knew there was going to be players leaving due to the bind we were in but I don't think anyone expected as many moves to happen as were done. The general consensus was we'd lose a few of the guys that were eating up big salary cap hits, didn't think we'd lose the equivalent of two lines.

It's a little easier to take because we had won the cup, it still sucks, but it'd be worse to see all these guys go had we not been the champs. We still have a very solid top two lines, and eventhough it won't help us this upcoming year we will have a lot of draft picks to use from all these trades. That will get us good, cheap talant, and relieve some cap issues, and to mix them in with the current core should keep us competitive down the road.

Don't see us repeating next year as champs, but we should at least be able to get back to the WCF or Semi's. Depends largely how Detroit does, division will likely come down to how healthy they stay vs how well the Hawks do having lost some depth and key role players. That in turn will play out if the Hawks finish 2-3 or 4-6 unless they absolutely tank and sneak back in.

[Callisto]

It's a hell of a lot easier to swallow than if they would have lost the SCF, since they'd still have to make the same moves. A lot of the bandwagon fans and those with no concept of how the salary cap/hockey as a business works are freaking out, but any real fan who understands that Bowman had the hardest job in front of him in terms of shitty decisions to make and knowledge of how disgusting our prospect pool/near-future draft picks are feel pretty OK.

The big thing is that we didn't really lose any of our most talented players outside of Ladd, but we did lose a huge amount of likable fan-favorite kind of guys. This year's team will be fine talent-wise, but they'll be boring as fuck off the ice compared to last year's.

[Selamis]

I know the Hawks Twitter feed quoted Bowman as saying he hadn't even figured out the Huet situation yet, as he wanted to deal with Niemi first. Is it still possible, that they keep Huet up, with Turco as the backup, and ship out more players to equal the 5 mil that Huet would free up if he's sent to the minors?

[Thoronas]

So whose going to be the team to surge up the conference standings next year based on how things are looking right now? I want to say LA but they haven't done as much as I thought they would by this point. If Colorado had made some moves they might be a good team, now I'm just wondering how far they expect to go with a bunch of youngsters and Anderson.

I want to believe Vancouver is going to continue to be dominant but our third and fourth lines are still very much in question and there is no guarantee our defense is going to be all that good. That being said I still won't be surprised if the top 3 teams in the conference will be SJ, Chicago and Vancouver.

[Bregor]

About the Hawks, from the outside looking in, it really doesn't seem that dire. You still have most of your top forwards and pretty much all your D. If you're not crushed about the difference between Niemi and Turco, I'd say you pretty much weathered the storm.

[Callisto]

Nah, without trading someone like Sharp, Bolland, or Campbell they don't have enough for Huet. It's more a matter of figuring out if there's a European squad he can get on before they dump him on the Hogs.

[Callisto]

So whose going to be the team to surge up the conference standings next year based on how things are looking right now? I want to say LA but they haven't done as much as I thought they would by this point. If Colorado had made some moves they might be a good team, now I'm just wondering how far they expect to go with a bunch of youngsters and Anderson.

I want to believe Vancouver is going to continue to be dominant but our third and fourth lines are still very much in question and there is no guarantee our defense is going to be all that good. That being said I still won't be surprised if the top 3 teams in the conference will be SJ, Chicago and Vancouver.

My money is on LA, honestly the West is looking a lot softer than last year, especially the Central since Nashville, St. Louis, and Columbus didn't really noticeably upgrade outside of the Halak move.

Out East Tampa is my sleeper all the way.

[Thoronas]

Out East Tampa is my sleeper all the way.

Are they really a sleeper when everyone is saying they're looking good?

One of the writers on puck daddy is already saying they're gonna make the playoffs this year. But I do agree with you, they're definitely looking a lot better. I think Florida might not be all that impressive this year but in 2 years look out.

Edit: I also think that Tampa playing better might bring Washington down to earth a little bit, once Florida gets going it will give them a bit more competition.

[Callisto]

About the Hawks, from the outside looking in, it really doesn't seem that dire. You still have most of your top forwards and pretty much all your D. If you're not crushed about the difference between Niemi and Turco, I'd say you pretty much weathered the storm.

Anyone who has actually compared Turco's stats to Niemi's and seen him play is fine. I've always liked his aggressive style, Huet always tried to pull shit like that off but is too slow for it.

Plus a puck-moving goalie put on one of the best puck-moving defenses sounds fun.

[Deader2818]

Its funny to see Kings fans freaking out and how we aren't a playoff team because we "lost" out on Kovy and replaced Frolov with Poni. Then you look at how bad the Blackhawks had to dismantle and im glad we havent just thrown out contracts and over pay to get players to play here.

Overall, I can't say any team in the west has gotten better yet (save for maybe Vancouver) and as of right now, I have the Kings in the top 5. Chicago, Detroit, San Jose, Vancouver, Los Angeles are my top 5 in the west. Nashville is prob 6th then 7th-8th are up in the air as I think Phoenix and Colorado were flukes but still might make it as the only teams that didn't make it that I feel have gotten better is St. Louis and maybe Calgary. Minnesota, Columbus, Edmonton, Anaheim, Dallas just haven't gotten better.

[Selamis]

I kinda of like the Niemi move for Turco in all honesty. I mean, Niemi was a fast fan favorite but he really didn't start getting a lot of play in back to back games until the regular season was winding down. He might not be a guy that can play 50-60 games a year, and sure he was hot in the playoffs, but it might be the same thing that we saw happen with Price, Thomas, Huet, and uh, what's that other guy in Montreal.... Have an outstanding playoff run then get a huge contract and the next year don't live up to your previous effort.

[Bregor]

Anyone who has actually compared Turco's stats to Niemi's and seen him play is fine. I've always liked his aggressive style, Huet always tried to pull shit like that off but is too slow for it.

Plus a puck-moving goalie put on one of the best puck-moving defenses sounds fun.

That's kind of my point. Chicago will be fine, and unless something dramatic happens between now and October, they'd still be one of my picks for the WCF.

Out East Tampa is my sleeper all the way.

If only you could win games based on goaltender tweets-per-60.

[Melena]

LA is probably going to be the surprise of the West. I don't think they will beat the Sharks but I can see them sliding into the 4th Seed if they avoid the injury bug. I think Phoenix is going to be the big drop off in the west.

[Selamis]

Anyone who has actually compared Turco's stats to Niemi's and seen him play is fine. I've always liked his aggressive style, Huet always tried to pull shit like that off but is too slow for it.

Plus a puck-moving goalie put on one of the best puck-moving defenses sounds fun.

Pretty much how I feel. Huet was always too hesitant to come out or not to play the puck, and if you're not sure you should just be safe and stay in the net. Niemi tried to handle the puck but he was very sloppy at times, so at least it'll be good to have Turco stopping the puck on dump ins, and getting a breakout started.

[Callisto]

Honestly the biggest loss in my eyes was Sopel as funny as that sounds, if there's any one thing I'd be worried about come playoff time it's the lack of a stay-at-home shotblocker to pair with Hjalmarsson.

[Selamis]

Its funny to see Kings fans freaking out and how we aren't a playoff team because we "lost" out on Kovy and replaced Frolov with Poni. Then you look at how bad the Blackhawks had to dismantle and im glad we havent just thrown out contracts and over pay to get players to play here.

Overall, I can't say any team in the west has gotten better yet (save for maybe Vancouver) and as of right now, I have the Kings in the top 5. Chicago, Detroit, San Jose, Vancouver, Los Angeles are my top 5 in the west. Nashville is prob 6th then 7th-8th are up in the air as I think Phoenix and Colorado were flukes but still might make it as the only teams that didn't make it that I feel have gotten better is St. Louis and maybe Calgary. Minnesota, Columbus, Edmonton, Anaheim, Dallas just haven't gotten better.

If I had to throw out a guess at projected finish based on the off season everyone had, I'd have a tougher time organizing a 1-5 than I would 6-8. Your top five teams, I agree 100% on, with LA as of now being the 5th. 1-4 can really be any sort of combination of SJ, Chi, Van, Det, then for 6th I'd say Nashville, and 7th and 8th probably looking at Phoenix and Calgary.

St. Louis and Columbus made a few improvements but they're not enough to compete with Detroit, and even the Hawks in their weakened state, however the goalies for every team are pretty damn solid so at least the division games should be competitive to an extent.