Provost

All the other media cut out McDavid with the two handed slash. It is the NHL, they probably pull an Aaron Rome and suspend Zadorov for the rest of the series.

What different lines have we seen him play on exactly? According to his ice time with different line-mates has was almost exclusively used with Garland and mostly had Blueger as his centre, occasionally subbed out with Suter and Miller... now Lindholm in the playoffs. The only significant time he didn't have Garland as his linemate is 32 minutes of play with Beauvilllier where that line generated zero goals and the only time his SF% and CF% were under 50%. There is no question the numbers indicate that Garland is the play driver on that line and they are better together than apart. Garland did play more all over the lineup and it didn't matter if Mikheyev. Hoglander, or Podkolzin was on his other wing, his numbers were solid.

Tocchet put him as the net front on the 6 on 5 when we pulled our goalie... so it would be interesting to see it on a regular PP.

Joshua is definitely more of a risk. He couldn’t crack the NHL and has hit the jackpot this year with how he meshes with Garland. It could be lightning in a bottle and be gone next year, or if he didn’t have Garland he might go back to being a fringe guy. Someone might just offer him more than it makes sense to match. Wingers are just more replaceable and riskier to overpay. Zadorov is less of a risk, even bad D often get paid $4 million a year. They are just a more valuable position and there are fewer NHL calibre guys, and absolute plugs manage to stay in the NHL. If the ask is really $5 million with some term… the downside is limited. What are the odds Zadorov regresses to being worse than a guy like Gudbranson? Zadorov said he was a top four guy and wanted to be where he was valued as such. He put his body where his mouth is and has proven that he is much more than a 3rd pairing guy. I say you slap an A on the guy and give him 5 years, hoping that you can get him under $5 million. If we have three reliable pairings next year and can spread the minutes out, I would love to see big Z get some time on the 2nd unit PP as the net front guy. You could have two units with completely different plays and styles which would be a nightmare to coach and scout against.

As most said, the trade needed longer to be evaluated. We got Lindholm to help in the playoffs. He has been instrumental so far. If you imagine the freed up Kuzmenko money goes to a Zadorov extension in the summer… how is the team not better with that swap. Calgary need ls to hit the jackpot on that late 1st rounder to turn the trade into a long term win. Low odds of that just based on history. As it stands, both teams should be happy. What did Calgary need an extra couple of months if a pending UFA for? Kuzmenko will make losing more fun at least and has turned into a fan favourite. I had posted earlier that against Edmonton the “third” line was going to be the difference. If our top two lines can match against McDavid/Draisaitl and their top D and keep to pretty much a draw…. Then Edmonton isn’t going to have an answer left for the Lindholm line, they don’t have evict depth and are still too top heavy. If we can avoid the Edmonton PP, we can win the series.

It is going to be interesting to see how management navigates it. Zadorov is going to be $5 million with term to sign, and that could be a discount to stay. Joshua is easily $3.5 million now if you give him a few years term. If they need cap room, then is it Mikheyev and Hronek that are the odd men out. No help from the farm next year, but maybe in a couple of years so some veteran UFA bandaids may be needed. They seem to love Myers and he is doing well one you reduce and simplify his role as always… so maybe you can get him for $4 million. Cole has had some problems since he had to start eating a lot of minutes when injuries happened earlier in the year, but has been good overall and if you have three reliable pairings and a decent spare like Juulsen, he can get more rest and stay sharp. Suter-Miller-Boeser XX-Petterson-Hoglander Joshua-Lindholm-Garland XX-XX-Podkolzin PDG-Aman Hughes-XX Zadorov-Cole Soucy-Myers Juulsen Demko Silovs That doesn’t leave a lot of money for a serious upgrade winger and a top four D. Maybe Tanev can come back and fit in seamlessly, same with Toffoli (that undoes a terrible Benning summer). Maybe a Hronek trade, maybe Silovs needs to be a big trade chip to make improvements elsewhere. Utah wants to revamp their roster… a Mikheyev + Hronek trade that brings back Crouse maybe. Ottawa wants to substantially change their roster, even if Tkachuk is off the table as they claim, Chychrun and Batherson are pretty good targets Lots of options to stay competitive, lots of ways to get worse.

Zadorov’s agent right now…

I counter with Boudreau and Boudreau… he was great and terrible with virtually he same roster.

I haven’t tried this yet… 6-3 Canucks. Mikhaev with the GWG

… and that is situational and mostly not under a coaches control. You can’t take the (ex) Coyotes and turn them into a Stanley Cup winner just by inserting the coach who won the Cup the previous year… that just isn’t how life works. If anyone thinks Green ever had a winning roster, they need to put down the pipe. When you need to rely on an Ekman Larsson-Myers duo as your main shutdown pairing and Eriksson as your highest paid forward… you aren’t winning much.

He didn’t have the players or the upper management to be successful. In the bubble every pundit and ex-head coach was marvelling at how well and how hard Green had that team playing and how they were the Canadian team most likely to win the Cup next. Of course Benning then immediately dismantles that roster and sewers the team again. The team that Alvin and JR have assembled is vastly different. Than what we had back then. Young guys like Petterson didn’t know how to be pros yet and weren’t ready to buy into systems play. They were all excited when Boudreau came in and they were allowed to run and gun. Both Green and Tocchet say they think the game the same way and Tocchet has repeatedly said he calls Green to talk about coaching ideas. I think you can take the word of an NHL head coach to know more about who is a good coach. Everyone said Tocchet was a terrible head coach when he came here. He had a losing record… it was because his roster was terrible. It takes alignment from the whole organization and Green never had that. Now Tocchet was given the support of a better roster, input on moves, a stellar (and likely very expensive) assistant coaching staff, etc. One was set up to fail and the other set up to succeed.

He is a good coach, let’s see if Ottawa does as is suggested and really try to make some moves. They are similar to Buffalo in that they really need to give up some young players and picks to try to be a playoff team. They are in a cycle of drafting high but also not getting good and having to keep paying big bucks for these high picks when their ELCs run out and the team is still bad.

Literally no GM in the league had fewer wins per cap dollar spent over his tenure… so that made him objectively the worst GM. The only teams that fared worse in the standings were ones trying to lose and tank; or ones who were spending half the money on their rosters like Arizona who only made the cap floor by trading for millions in LTIR contracts. The NHL is set up to reward failure so of course he is going to get some good players… it is impossible to avoid that when your team is so terrible for so long… even at that Benning fared badly. He whiffed on half his top ten picks and got fewer NHL players from later rounds than average.

If you don’t know the difference, then you need to sit back for a while and take a break from posting. 1. We were a crappy team not even close to being a possible contender like we are now. 2. Markstrom was a UFA and not under contract. He walked even though the GM had spent the entire offseason trying to sign him… and because of that “ran out of time” to sign other players ( or even tender them offers) and saw them walk. It wasn’t a choice, if Markstrom was under contract like Demko is, he would have stayed. 3. We didn’t save cap because there was so little trust in Demko they immediately signed another 1B starter with the money they saved and ended up spending more on the duo than Markstrom would have cost them. 4. The expansion draft was looming so you couldn’t keep both Markstrom and Demko as only one could be protected. 5. Benning was the worst GM in the league. Never use any moves from that era as justification for what competent GMs should do.

Good grief, no need to start any drama. We have a Vezina calibre starter and a young kid who looks like he might be the real deal…. Might. Many goalies look good in stretches, few goalies can be consistent high end starters. Demko has reached that level…. Silovs needs years under his belt before we could even dream of handing over the future of the team to him. Demko is not being traded based on a few games and one playoff run by Silovs. He just got nominated for the Vezina for God’s sake and you are talking about moving him because he isn’t good enough. No controversy, just opportunity. As it turns out, you can trade players in the NHL. We can have what is probably a really good back up next season and raise the value of those assets, or we could even trade Silovs if his value is high this offseason to help the team and/or move money out. A Vezina nominated goalie is not where you look to save cap space…