I think the reason we didn't become sellers at the deadline is for one reason, and it's money. I know that most fans would rather a high draft pick than a first round exit, but as far as bonus revenue, ticket sales, and merchandise sales there is NOTHING like making the Playoffs to generate an extra $2-3 million in revenue. Revenue that could go towards signing your impact players in the offseason, should your owner so choose. Which ours does.
As a Sens fan I'd give up the playoffs this year to have won the Cup last year. Small consolation, I know. *sigh*
I was actually a bit disappointed when Redden scored. Don't get me wrong, I wanted the Sens to win, but I would have been happier if it had gone to overtime.
Brind'amour looked really pissed when Spezza scored the empty-netter, I expect he'll be on fire tonight.
Brind'amour looked really pissed when Spezza scored the empty-netter, I expect he'll be on fire tonight.
Brindy went to the locker room so fast after that goal, I thought he was injured.
I don't know if anyone else watched the game on Center Ice, but I did take small consolation in the announcer karma. The Ottawa announcers were talking about how horrible our PP is (which I know it is) and they went over and over it for about 30 seconds into the PP. And then Staal scored. It was quite hilarious to hear them back peddle.
That said - Ottawa's announcers are actually really good and not very homerish.
Walker closing his hand on the puck baffled me for a minute....since he did it right in front of the ref, pretty blatantly so I was thinking to myself "wait...can you close your hand on the puck in our own zone???" until Ottawa replayed the play and went over how great of a play it was, minus the closing of the hand.
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....and nothing dims these stars.
Yeah, we should've shipped Scott Walker to Nashville. He really deserved an opportunity to win the Cup with them
This also makes it much tougher to re-sign guys like Walker and Whitney in free agency. What exactly do we have to offer? Whitney already won the Cup, so he'll leave for the money. Walker came here to win the Cup, so he'll probably look to sign with a team that has a chance to do so.
Nashville doesn't want Walker, which is why they traded him. Since then, they've brought up Radulov, signed Dumont and traded for Forsberg. They have no room for him.
Anyhow, if I were Whitney or Walker I couldn't wait to get out of this godforsaken hellhole. I was watching the Pittsburgh/New Jersey game the other night and something jumped out at me--Pittsburgh was down by 1 with a minute to go and not only was every fan still in the building, they were standing up and cheering. Compare that to here, where people stream for the exits with five minutes to go whether we're up by one, down by one, tied, up by five, etc. I wonder if there's any other arena in the league where fans start leaving when the game is heading to overtime/shootout.
They'll be gone and replaced with other teams' castoffs, because no one wants to play here unless they are grossly overpaid. Seas of empty seats are not fun to play in front of. God our fanbase is pathetic.
Here's a list of our amazing FA signing the last two seasons:
Whitney - bought out.
Stillman - arbitration settlement walked away from.
Tanabe - arbitration settlement walked away from.
Cullen - not given qualifying offer.
Kaberle - not given qualifying offer.
Grahame - one of the worst goalies in the league statistically, victim of public tirades from his own coach.
Letowski - fourth liner.
I would make Whitney a reasonable offer and let him walk if he wants more. It's a contract year and Stillman has been injured most of the season, resulting in more ice time and better linemates. He will not put up similar numbers next season. Not to mention he'll be 35 and probably suffer fifteen groin injuries during the duration of the contract.
Last edited by Amaxing Joni Jokel: 02-28-2007 at 02:40 PM.
I've always thought that the organization was well highly regarded and I think Raleigh is one of the nicest cities I've ever visited. When we are finished down here, my soon to be wife and I have talked about exploring opportunities in Raleigh.
That being said, how can we blame any player for going for as much money as they can get? It's easy for us to sit back and say a guy should give up a million dollars to stay put. If I were Cullen or Ward, I would have accepted those offers too.
I would expect offers will be made to both Whitney and Walker that the Hurricanes will be unwilling or unable to match. Hopefully I'm wrong. This is why I would have been fine with moving either one. Their values will likely never be higher and now we'll lose them both with no return.
Nashville doesn't want Walker, which is why they traded him. Since then, they've brought up Radulov, signed Dumont and traded for Forsberg. They have no room for him.
Anyhow, if I were Whitney or Walker I couldn't wait to get out of this godforsaken hellhole. I was watching the Pittsburgh/New Jersey game the other night and something jumped out at me--Pittsburgh was down by 1 with a minute to go and not only was every fan still in the building, they were standing up and cheering. Compare that to here, where people stream for the exits with five minutes to go whether we're up by one, down by one, tied, up by five, etc. I wonder if there's any other arena in the league where fans start leaving when the game is heading to overtime/shootout.
They'll be gone and replaced with other teams' castoffs, because no one wants to play here unless they are grossly overpaid. Seas of empty seats are not fun to play in front of. God our fanbase is pathetic.
Here's a list of our amazing FA signing the last two seasons:
Whitney - bought out.
Stillman - arbitration settlement walked away from.
Tanabe - arbitration settlement walked away from.
Cullen - not given qualifying offer.
Kaberle - not given qualifying offer.
Grahame - one of the worst goalies in the league statistically, victim of public tirades from his own coach.
Letowski - fourth liner.
I would make Whitney a reasonable offer and let him walk if he wants more. It's a contract year and Stillman has been injured most of the season, resulting in more ice time and better linemates. He will not put up similar numbers next season. Not to mention he'll be 35 and probably suffer fifteen groin injuries during the duration of the contract.
That being said, how can we blame any player for going for as much money as they can get? It's easy for us to sit back and say a guy should give up a million dollars to stay put. If I were Cullen or Ward, I would have accepted those offers too.
I'm not saying anyone should give up money to stay here. In fact I believe I stated that if I were Whitney, I'd leave too.
Quote:
I would expect offers will be made to both Whitney and Walker that the Hurricanes will be unwilling or unable to match. Hopefully I'm wrong. This is why I would have been fine with moving either one. Their values will likely never be higher and now we'll lose them both with no return.
Montreal didn't trade Souray. The Islanders didn't trade Blake. Atlanta didn't trade Kozlov. Why didn't they trade them? Because they are important parts of the team and they are trying to make the playoffs. I know some here want to give up and pack it in, but evidently we didn't and neither did any team we are battling for a playoff spot.
Besides, what would we have gotten for them? Likely a draft pick that we would have used to select the next Jeff Hereema, along with a prospect of the Niklas Nordgren ilk.
I'm not saying anyone should give up money to stay here. In fact I believe I stated that if I were Whitney, I'd leave too.
Montreal didn't trade Souray. The Islanders didn't trade Blake. Atlanta didn't trade Kozlov. Why didn't they trade them? Because they are important parts of the team and they are trying to make the playoffs. I know some here want to give up and pack it in, but evidently we didn't and neither did any team we are battling for a playoff spot.
Besides, what would we have gotten for them? Likely a draft pick that we would have used to select the next Jeff Hereema, along with a prospect of the Niklas Nordgren ilk.
Instead they traded their best defensive defenseman in Rivet for Josh Georges and a 1st. Montreal seems to be more focused on rebuilding and future seasons then they are on this one since Huet went down.
I'm with you on the draft pick though, with this teams prospect development habbits it's either a mid-round pick that breaks through or a no-brianer. Ward is the exception for us, guys drafted in the mid-late first for us have been crap.
Instead they traded their best defensive defenseman in Rivet for Josh Georges and a 1st. Montreal seems to be more focused on rebuilding and future seasons then they are on this one since Huet went down.
Point taken, but they still didn't trade their two most valuable impending UFA assets in Souray and Markov, both of whom (certainly Souray) would have likely commanded a lot more in trade than a late first and a junk defenseman.
As a sens fan I think the Canes are still one of the most dangerous teams in the NHL - and if they make the post-season the road to the cup goes through NJ and Carolina.
If not for all the injuries etc on defense they would be 1st in the East in my opinion
Point taken, but they still didn't trade their two most valuable impending UFA assets in Souray and Markov, both of whom (certainly Souray) would have likely commanded a lot more in trade than a late first and a junk defenseman.
I definitely agree with that. My thought is that they are making cap room for next year in order to resign Souray and Markov. With that move they pretymuch made it official which of the 3 impending UFA defensemen could still be in their long term plans. That said, I think Gainey feelt Montreals chances are what a lot of Carolina fans feel our chances are so he made the move. Honestly in Rutherford's situation if someone were to offer a similar package for, say, Hedican I might have been tempted but probably would have said no.
Wow, so now the fans are terrible here? That's not what the players say. The players also say they love the city.
And who's to say they'll get the offers they want from other teams? Think the Rangers regret their Cullen and Ward signings already? Think other teams won't be aware of players who had career years here?
And why do you assume that Whitney and Walker are gone? I have read no where about anything regarding them not receiving a fair offer from managment or wanting to leave or being unhappy here or anything.
Those seas of empty seats for every non-weekend game must be my imagination, then.
Tampa sold out every game last season despite just barely making the playoffs (and having an arena that seats over 2,000 more than ours). Why can't we? Or at least get a turnout above 15 friggin thousand for a game in which we could have taken first place in the division (last week against Atlanta)? The media exposure this team has is pretty close to nonexistent. Either that is a result of the fanbase or the fanbase is a result of that, but either way our attendance is pathetic. I would not sign here unless I was thrown a ridiculous contract ala Jovanovski.
Does anyone really think we have a shot at getting a top or even a mid-tier UFA? Having someone like Souray or Markov instead of ****ing Tanabe (he of the five powerplay points) to play on the powerplay would do wonders for us, but it's not happening. Neither is having Hannan or Phillips to go against other team's top lines instead of whoever is doing it now (I don't think we even bother to match lines anymore).
Oh, I forgot our other FA signing.
Oleg Tverdovsky - played the last two seasons in Russia after registering a whopping 13 points his last NHL season and watching his team win the Cup from the press box. Was substantially overpaid and we had to forfeit our top prospect to get a team to take him of our hands.
Last edited by Amaxing Joni Jokel: 02-28-2007 at 04:54 PM.
This is one of the worst defensive teams I have seen in a long team.. the D needs a complete overhaul or philosophy change... We also continue to suffer from being a very very soft team. We need to get tougher this offseason
This is one of the worst defensive teams I have seen in a long team.. the D needs a complete overhaul or philosophy change... We also continue to suffer from being a very very soft team. We need to get tougher this offseason
I agree 100%. The Hurricanes let anybody push them around and the defense is made of Swiss cheese.
