Holmgren disagrees with you, those slow footed defenceman will be exposed come playoff time. You don't appreciate what he brings to the table, this isn't the 70's.
slow footed? Maybe Alberts and if Jones when he falls, but other then that I cant really call our defense slow at all. Complete opposite actually. We dont have them fat slow guys that can hit, but actually puckmovers.
Holmgren disagrees with you, those slow footed defenceman will be exposed come playoff time. You don't appreciate what he brings to the table, this isn't the 70's.
Really? Have you ever watched a Flyers game? Hatcher and Rathje don't play for us anymore genius.
Holmgren disagrees with you, those slow footed defenceman will be exposed come playoff time. You don't appreciate what he brings to the table, this isn't the 70's.
Yup, the Flyers defense is really slow with Timonen, Carle, Coburn and Jones all carrying the puck end-to-end on the rush, slow-footed dmen do that all the time. And hey, all-star dmen like Timonen are always slow footed, that's why they get in right??? And hey, when scouts lable Coburn as smooth skating and good skating they REALLY mean that he's slow right???
Last, where has Holmgren said that the Flyers defense is too slow and that we need Kabs this year??? LAST year yes but if you haven't noticed half our defense is new this year. So again, where has Holmgren said THIS YEAR that we need a guy like Kabs beyond the tweaking we've already done. Add to this that we've already gotten better in managments eyes with the return of Jones and Parent is ready to return too.
Kaberle has gone from being a really good deal to being overpaid. He's been brutal this year and Wilson has benched him. I don't want him anywhere near the Flyers and I can only thank Kaberle for not waiving his NTC last year. Things would be really different if we were without Carter this year.
No to getting Kaberle, he'd be great but its just not an option because of our cap issue...
Lupul's contract extension doesn't kick in until after the 09-10 season
i think some defenders will go before forwards, since parent is back (and he is staying in the ahl this entire season, they dont want to keep calling him up and sending him down, same with giroux, though because of injuries he may see alot of time now)
id think of trying to package upshall or lupul along with jones and maybe alberts for some prospects and picks... obviously we cant take only salary
we will know if jvr will be playing pro soon i hope.. soon as the ncaa playoffs are over he'll either join the phantoms or wont.. if he doesnt than its like a 90% chance hes returning to NH... i dunno why he would cause he is ready to jump to the pros, but we'll see
gange and carters contracts expire the same year, hate to say it but carter will stay cause JVR will be here.. maybe we dump salary by losing knuble, lupul, hartnell, upshall, jones, etc and sign both gagne and carter, gagne has played here his whole life he could take less but i doubt it since hes since at his worth right now
i see us signing Vaananen over Knuble next year, cause of our depth at forward... even though we have so much depth at D too, actually i could see us letting knuble, vaananen, alberts, kukkonen all goo
we also need to resign Upshall (RFA) next year, maybe Lowe can offer him $3 to $4 million and we can get a nice compensation without taking on any salaries
also Carter will be a RFA after the 10/11 season, so the flyers would get siiiick compensation if they couldn't sign him
lines next year??? (will be UFA after this season)
gagne - richards - giroux (knuble)
hartnell - carter - lupul
upshall - briere - nodl
jvr - metropolit - cote
timmo - sbisa
coburn - carle
jones (vaananen) - parent
The league is still doing extremely well in attendance, solidly better than the NBA if I'm not mistaken.
I think the recession will slow the cap's growth and probably cause growth to stop, but it's not going to decrease the cap significantly and I think the NHL will bend over backwards to make sure that doesn't happen.
Plus, hockey fans aren't like other fans, we're too committed. I mean, we flocked back to the NHL right after the lockout, compare that to the MLB which took at least a decade to recover from 1994 and still may not be at pre-1994 levels of popularity.
Plus, the cap doesn't HAVE to go down even if the revenues do. There is a 'kicker' provision, that the NHLPA and NHL can make whatever they agree on. If the cap based on the normal calculation would be $48M, the NHL/NHLPA could agree to increase the kicker to keep the cap at $55M. The money wouldn't actually be spent that way ... it would go back to the owners via escrow if the revenue came in low. The opponents of this idea would be players like Richards and Ovechkin that are locked in at a salary for a long time, and the teams that need the floor to drop (although, their actual cash expenditures would drop, because the escrow would increase, though if the big markets grew before the small markets, they could be in an even deeper hole after the recovery). I don't think either of those groups are large enough to block it from happening. If the recession continues for somewhere in the 2-4 year range, then MOST of the NHL players are going to be FA in the depressed period, and would rather sign a deal based on the artifically high cap, knowing they have built in raises as the escrow goes down from the revenues recovering.
Who are we trading for Cole? Not like he'll be cheap...
I anticipate Prospal like trade in terms of value? Impossible?
At least Prospal scored 29 goals before he was traded from Tampa. Cole won't hit that mark this season, not even close. Cole is on paste to score 32pt, maybe 20 goals if he is really really lucky.
I would love to have that size, speed and physical play. Knuble, Lupul, Cole, Asham on RW Giroux if someone gets injured.
I anticipate Prospal like trade in terms of value? Impossible?
At least Prospal scored 29 goals before he was traded from Tampa. Cole won't hit that mark this season, not even close. Cole is on paste to score 32pt, maybe 20 goals if he is really really lucky.
I would love to have that size, speed and physical play. Knuble, Lupul, Cole, Asham on RW Giroux if someone gets injured.
Edmonton might want more than what we gave up for Prospal considering they gave up Pitkanen for Cole, and before that they traded Lupul and their captain for Pitkanen. To end up with almost nothing 1.5 years later would be absolutely brutal asset management...because I don't think Picard and a draft pick was a very steep price for Prospal.
