Bits: And Some Thoughts On The Future

and a QO is just the 10% raise for one year right? I need a CBA guy stat!

Is that he signs a longer term contract with the Islanders. I like his wheels and think he has potential to be very dynamic. Simply cutting him lose doesn’t make a lot of sense, unless there’s an issue we don’t know about.

De Haan probably takes Hillen’s roster spot. Reese will be the emergency injury callup again. So Reese doesn’t need a roster spot, he’ll be in BP till someone’s hurt.

all lopey and goofy

I even qualified the WHOLE STATEMENT with:

(Not that I want Staal, just first reference point to pop into my head.)

Like we’ve never had a guy who sucker-punched somebody (or otherwise committed a dirty act)? For god sake if you were a GM, your team would have like 5 guys on it. The Staals are respected throughout the league and by no means would damage the Isles reputation…I can’t even believe you said that out loud.

It makes you wonder why teams invest so much money in scouting, drafting and developing their own talent. How much did the Bruins spend on those 200 players to get the five who helped them win the Cup? Why not let someone else do all that work and just sign good free agents?

I can’t begin to describe what’s wrong with even giving this idea the time of day. Instead, I’ll say:
1. Ask the Rangers, Flyers and Leafs about this strategy and how well it’s worked for them or any other big-spending team.
2. Because unless your team is owned by Scrooge McDuck, there are financial realities like the salary cap and a finite (even for the uber-rich) supply of money.
3. This was written by a paid, professional sportswriter. We see more insightful, thoughtful and constructive analysis everyday on sites like this populated by fans with other day jobs. That’s frightening.

All capable top 4 guys:
-Jovocop
-McCabe
-Hannan
-Ericsson
-Montador (possibly)
-Bieksa(for now)
-Ehrhoff (if he doesn’t need surgery/has a healthy shoulder)
-Wiz might even be worth a 2nd try(if given the right role), a PP with Wiz and Streit at the points would be insane.

On the market guys, I have no idea but there is always someone with a bad contract or who their team doesn’t want/can’t afford like Wiz last year. And after that list, there are definitely some borderline 4/5 guys that could fill the role in FA.

made a nice combo late last year and played a lot together at BPT

I look for them to be 5-6 opening day

we have a lot of depth on D – really didn’t need Hillen IF they think CDH is ready

if he is, then it makes sense

Wishart is the 7th D-man and not a bad one

and we may well sign another D – Jovocop….

With Streit, A-Mac, Donovan, De Haan, Katic and Ness we have smaller puck moving guys. I love Streit and A-Mac and I think Donovan and De Haan are legit prospects but we can’t have an entire defense core composed of 6 foot 180 pound players. Hamonic has is a bigger, tough, skilled player and I really liked the trade for Wishart because he is big and skilled. Mayfield is big, skilled and has a right handed shot so he automatically enters the org pretty high on the depth chart (although he is likely a few years away from being NHL ready) De Hart is the only bigger defense prospect that comes to mind and Mayfield has quite a bit more upside. This gives us a good blend of smaller puck movers and bigger guys who still are quite mobile. i think absolute best case scenario Pronger might be a comparable but more likely in Mayfield I think we’ll have a reliable second pairing shutdown guy who can also play point on the PP. (Maybe not a true “QB” but more of a triggerman) That’s still a nice haul for a second round pick. The important thing to remember though is that he could easily fall short of this mark. I like this draft pick because it represents a nice trend but Mayfield shouldn’t stop us from drafting/signing similar prospects in the near future. The more prospects in the stable the more chances we build a strong contender.

That’s what it reminded me of: Like a fantasy draft, with real implications, and 8 guys at the table when you’re making your picks, and you might still be meeting your pick from the last round to shake his hand before you ship him off for pictures and interviews.

that would happen. It would be an awful amount of cash in one shot, for a team that’s going to have to walk along a very thin line to make money.

Just because he’s going UFA doesn’t mean that Hillen can’t re-sign with the Isles. Depends on the market for his services. It could be a lot going on behind the scenes… maybe Snow knows he can’t afford Hillen along with everyone else… it could have to do with the aniticpation of the cap going down if the new CBA lowers the percentage of revenues that goes to salary. It could be Snow doing Hillen a favor by letting him try the market.

Streit – Jurcina
MacDonald – Hamonic
Eaton – De Haan
Mottau

Then on BP as callup you have

Wishart, Katic and Reese

So the hope is that even if the defense gets pounded with injuries, you don’t have to rush up a rookie like last year with Hamonic.

no reason to hate on Rick but also no reason to accept him being the starter again until he demonstrates it on the ice

Guys like Hillen I don’t think would do well playing one out of every 10 games. What I would rather do is promote from BPT if possible, and let BPT sign people to ATOs or promotions from the ECHL. You’re also assuming that Hillen would want to be in that position…they just let Gervais walk to be nice and let him get development and playing time somewhere else when they knew they couldn’t provide it.

I just said in the other thread that maybe we should take a good run at Kaberle…then all bets are off. I’d trade anyone but Amac, Ham or Streit and restructure the whole thing.

Even if Garth & Capt. Jack feel they don’t need Hillen, why just let him walk for nothing? Not even a pick? Hell, they’ll get “something” for Bruno at some point (probably a bag of pucks). That’s why I think a longer term deal for Hillen is on the horizon and Eaton gets moved. But that’s just my gut, which is wrong 8 times out of 10.

The return of Okposo, the emergence of Grabner, the trade for Montoya…the list goes on. There were so many individual variables this year, I’m not even sure why we bother trying to figure out how each individual guy performed…For all I know, Josh Bailey was Jagr and Dylan Reese was Bobby Orr.

And he was a older and a much tougher kid.

Sutter broke in as a 19.5 yo after an initial 3 game taste…Strome is turning 18 next week…that’s a significant time difference.

the 9 games should be a given. I know they did it last year with Nino to generate some fan interest, but we’d be in a whole lot better shape if we still had those 9 games for Nino this year.

Now that the fan interest in better shape, the 9 games should be for a guy who is really knocking on the door.