NHL 2017 -Official Discussion Thread

[Smitty-48]

Anaheim gives up Shea Theodore to keep Sami Vatanen and Josh Manson. Ouch. Love Manson, but would have given them Vatanen in a heartbeat over Theodore.

[StCapps]

Yeah at least Sakic wasn't the only GM fucking up this expansion draft thing.

[Smitty-48]

Based on what he's done, doing, and rumoured to be trying to do, seems like the problem is ownership as much as anything, they clearly are unwilling to give him a Shanaplan like mandate to blow it up and build for the long term, I mean, why else would they bother to keep Varlamov and dump Pickard? Obviously the owners think that last season was an anamoly and the Avs aren't as bad as they played. Seems like Harold Ballard Syndrome and Sakic is just Punch Imlach, in other words Sakic is not really the GM, he's just the front man for the owners, but he doesn't really run things. The owners don't want to hear that it's going to take five years to build it back to contention, which is what a real GM would tell them, so they'd rather have Sakic as the figurehead, and they're just unrealistic in terms of what they can get for the assets in trade, so it's pretty much going nowhere right now.

Jamie Mclennan on TSN says "Sakic is basically on permanent vacation, when he is gonna put in some work?" That pretty much sums it up.

[StCapps]

If by not as bad as they looked this year, they are thinking a sub 70 point team, then fine. If they think we are a bubble playoff team, what the damn hell? We just had the worst regular season in the salary cap era, we are not good, we're not even close. I wish the ownership would just embrace the rebuild.

[Smitty-48]

If by not as bad as they looked this year, they are thinking a sub 70 point team, then fine. If they think we are a bubble playoff team, what the damn hell? We just had the worst regular season in the salary cap era, we are not good, we're not even close. I wish the ownership would just embrace the rebuild.

Well, again, based on the moves and rumours, especially Melnyk outing them in the press as being completely out to lunch with their asks for Duchene, I think they prolly just have unrealistic expectations about what they can get for the likes of Duchene and/or Landeskog and/or Barrie and/or Johnson, in that they think they're going to sell low on their star players, and other teams are going to have to give them the moon in return, which, again, this is where a real GM would speak truth to power and say "OK, look, get real, these other GM's are not just going to line up and let you fleece them, they're not that dumb, you are selling low, stop thinking stars for stars and start thinking stars for picks and prospects, because that's how this league works now..."

The way most trades happen now is that you are giving your older more expensive star players to teams which are in the window, prolly even retaining salary to make it feasible, and then they are sacrificing picks and prospects back to you, hockey trades are few and far between, and almost never when one of the parties is selling low on older more expensive star players whose stock has crashed.

[StCapps]

Ryan Strome for Jordan Eberle.

[Smitty-48]

Ryan Strome for Jordan Eberle.

Dumb. Jordan Eberle at $6 million for two years, for a 23 year old making $2.5 million for one then RFA? Why? Eberle had seven more goals than Strome, that's $500,000 a goal. Eberle couldn't do shit on Connor McDavid's wing, but suddenly he's gonna shoot the lights out with Tavares? Really?

[StCapps]

Ryan Strome for Jordan Eberle.

Dumb. Jordan Eberle at $6 million for two years, for a 23 year old making $2.5 million for one then RFA? Why? Eberle had seven more goals than Strome, that's $500,000 a goal. Eberle couldn't do shit on Connor McDavid's wing, but suddenly he's gonna shoot the lights out with Tavares? Really?

Garth Snow is a terrible GM and always has been, they should have fired him like a decade ago, for real. It's not like the only option was to bring Brian Milbury back. Maybe the Islanders want to always have one of the worst GM's in the league?

[Smitty-48]

Ryan Strome for Jordan Eberle.

Dumb. Jordan Eberle at $6 million for two years, for a 23 year old making $2.5 million for one then RFA? Why? Eberle had seven more goals than Strome, that's $500,000 a goal. Eberle couldn't do shit on Connor McDavid's wing, but suddenly he's gonna shoot the lights out with Tavares? Really?

Garth Snow is a terrible GM and always has been, they should have fired him like a decade ago, for real. It's not like the only option was to bring Brian Milbury back. Maybe the Islanders want to always have one of the worst GM's in the league?

No kidding, I mean, they had Kyle Okposo with Tavares and he had 64 points, they let him walk UFA at $6 million to BUF, and Franz Nielsen to DET too, then surprise surprise they fall back out of the playoffs, dump your 1RW and 2C and most teams would, but now they trade a young asset for Eberle at the same price they balked at for Okposo? I wouldn't trade you Okposo for Eberle.

But meanwhile, the Andrew Ladd contract? Yeesh. Jaro Halak? Whoops. Denis Seidenberg? Doh.

[StCapps]

Word is the Avs are eyeing Makar with that fourth pick, might even be the only option they are considering. Sounds like we are one of those teams who has fallen in love with kid, if Heiskanen is somehow still on the board and we pick Makar, I'll be disappointed.