For those of us looking forward to the UFA market starting July 1st the plum player was Kevin Bieksa. Well, he just resigned with the Canucks.
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=370169
Now that chip is off the table who would you like Snow to focus on next?
Here are list of some UFA defenseman courtesy of CapGeek. Who would you select? I also added how the shoot.
Jovanovski, Ed (left) |
PHO | 35 | $6,500,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
McCabe, Bryan (left) | NYR | 36 | $5,750,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Hamrlik, Roman(left) | MTL | 37 | $5,500,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Hannan, Scott (left) |
WAS | 32 | $4,500,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Kaberle, Tomas(left) | BOS | 33 | $4,250,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Pitkanen, Joni (left) | CAR | 27 | $4,000,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Rivet, Craig (right) |
CLB | 36 | $3,500,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Salo, Sami (right) |
VAN | 36 | $3,500,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Wisniewski, James(right) | MTL | 27 | $3,250,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Ehrhoff, Christian (left) | VAN | 28 | $3,100,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
White, Ian (right) |
SAN | 27 | $2,999,995 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Staios, Steve (right) |
CGY | 37 | $2,700,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Sopel, Brent (right) | MTL | 34 | $2,333,333 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Vandermeer, Jim » | EDM | 31 | $2,300,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Hejda, Jan(left) | CLB | 33 | $2,000,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Huskins, Kent (left) |
SAN | 32 | $1,700,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
O'Brien, Shane (left) | NAS | 27 | $1,600,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Montador, Steve(right) | BUF | 31 | $1,550,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Martinek, Radek (right) |
NYI | 34 | $1,500,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Babchuk, Anton (right) | CGY | 27 | $1,400,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Skrastins, Karlis (left) | DAL | 36 | $1,375,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
O'Donnell, Sean (left) |
PHI | 39 | $1,300,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Foote, Adam (right) |
COL | 39 | $1,250,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Eminger, Steve (right) |
NYR | 27 | $1,125,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Blindenbacher, Severin(right) | DAL | 28 | $1,112,500 | 2011 (UFA) | |
Salei, Ruslan (left) |
DET | 36 | $1,100,000 | 2011 (UFA) | |
One player I did miss from this list is Jonathan Ericsson. At 6'5" this left shooting defenseman could clog up the middle for years to come. He is only 27 years old.
My other observation is the list includes a lot of older players. Some could provide help while others are definitely at the end of their careers. I think we need a right handed shooting defenseman that can play the point and be physical. But is there one in this list?