Drunkard

I guess we'll see, but I just don't see the need for him on the roster next season. LW - Kane, Moulson, Foligno, Deslauriers, Ennis (who has shown to be able to play RW with no issues) C - McEichel, Girgensons, Grigorenko, McCormick, Reinhart (right handed shot who could probably play right wing if he can't nail down a pivot spot initially) RW - Ennis, Stewart (hopefully), Gionta, Kaleta (possibly) So while yes Hodgson could possibly slot in on the right wing, there are better alternatives in Stewart, Reinhart, Ennis, or even Mitchell or Flynn just when looking at the people currently on the roster to go along with Gionta and Kaleta. Add in the possibility of outside free agents and trading for a RW and I don't see the need for him or the risk in keeping him an extra year and having to buy him out at 2/3 rather than 1/3. His production could be replaced by an AHL call up at this point so it shouldn't be hard to roll the dice and bring in just about anyone that will play better than him without his anchor of a contract (thank you Darcy) possibly hindering this team going forward. Or maybe Murray will take the gamble and hope for a rebound season. I imagine he'll rebound and play better next season (it would almost be impossible not to) but I imagine him eventually being traded down the line while we retain a portion of his cap and salary to move him. Luckily we have plenty of cap space to play with.

There's always the option to buy him out at 1/3 value rather than waiting another season and being stuck having to buy him out at 2/3. I know the blue print is to be like the Kings but I'm hoping Murray doesn't make the same mistake they did with Mike Richards and wait too long to buy him out. Unless it turns out that Hodgson has been dealing with a season long nagging injury that we don't know about then his play has completely fallen off a cliff this season and Murray needs to give serious thought into moving on from him. At the center position we're likely looking at 4 of McEichel, Reinhart, Girgensons, Grigorenko, and McCormick and we still have guys like Ennis or even Foligno who can man the pivot in a pinch. And while our right side is pretty thin after losing Stafford and Armia, Ennis has proven capable to fill in on that side and we still have Gionta plus Kaleta who I think will be re-signed. Personally, I hope we trade Stewart at the deadline for a good prospect (rather than a pick) then resign him in the offseason so he and Kane can bookend our prized newly drafted stud center. We also have the ability to put one of the extra centers on the right side or obtaining someone through trade or free agency. We shouldn't have any trouble finding someone who would easily out produce Hodgson's numbers for less money, shorter term, or both.

I hope we trade Stewart for a good prospect and then resign him in the offseason. If we did, I think we'd see a lineup of something like this to start the year: Moulson Girgensons Ennis Kane McEichel Stewart Foligno Grigorenko Gionta Deslauriers McCormick Kaleta Gorges Bogosian Zadorov Ristolainen Weber Pysyk I think Reinhart starts the year in Rochester because he'll be eligible to and because Nolan would probably prefer to avoid breaking in 2 green centers into top 6 NHL duty at the same time. Grigorenko takes the 3rd center spot because he's no longer waiver exempt and he seems to be a much more natural fit at the center position than on the wing. McEichel gets put between two guys with talent, speed, and the toughness to protect him and produce offensively. I think they re-sign Kaleta and McCabe stays in Rochester another season (at least to start the year).

Kid? Isn't he the same age you are?

For the same reason Torrey Mitchell is a top 6 center and Girgensons is a top line center. We don't have anyone else better/ready at the moment. I really like Zadorov and I absolutely love his potential but on most other teams in the league he would not be in the top 4 this season even though he's holding his own on the worst team in the league.

I agree with the being aggressive part but rather than selling off a guy like Myers for volume I'd rather go the other way and start packaging picks and prospects for capable young players who are ready to help us turn this team around. Personally I think we should keep Myers unless someone severely overpays but if we are going to move him I'd prefer to hold out for a team willing to send us a young top line winger or prospect very closer to the NHL that projects to that. Someone who can play on Reinhart or McEichel's wing and not look out of place with respect to talent who can grow with them. All that being said, whether you were pro-tank or anti-tank, it will end this April. The rest of the selling off will occur this month or right before the deadline in early March and the focus should shift towards obtaining players who will be ready to help sooner rather than later and that should be when we'll see what Murray and Nolan are really made of. I'm sure I can speak for just about everyone when I say that it's about freaking time and we are ready for the next stage in the process. This season hasn't been fun for anyone, even those of us who think it was necessary to get our 2nd stud forward to build the team around.

He'll only be an RFA in 2016 not a UFA. I like Deslauriers a ton and his style of play isn't going to lead to a ton of offensive production so I don't think we'll have to worry about losing him to some huge offer we can't or won't match. That said I'd be fine with either a bridge deal that ends while he still has a year before UFA or a long term contract at 4th liner type money.

I don't mind the darker blue vs the royal blue so much as the gray that lines the logo and makes up the pit stains under the arms (I won't even get into the stupid cuffs on the turdburger jerseys). They should have eliminated all the gray as soon as they ditched the goathead jersey. At least it made some sense with the black and red color scheme but it is completely unnecessary with the blue and gold scheme.

I like the potential signing. It's a low risk high reward type of signing because he can probably be had for cheap and at the first sign of any sort of trouble he can be cut loose. As for the racist comments if several of the black players on Miami took up for him and it didn't bother them then I can look past it as long as it doesn't bother any of the Bills players.

Maybe you'll run into Mick Dodge while you're out there.

How do you figure? We've got Gionta, Moulson, McCormick, Weber, and Gorges as veterans under contract next season and younger veterans in Ennis, Foligno and Myers. Plus the kids like Girgensons, Ristolainen, and Zadorov will have a year under their belts and there are still opportunities to get more veterans through trades and free agency. Going into this planned tank season Murray added Gionta, Moulson, Gorges, Mitchell, Meszaros, and Benoit plus held onto Stewart. I imagine once the bottoming out is complete at season's end he won't be shy about adding more.

You lock them up to long term deals way before they are ever eligible for unrestricted free agency and they are unwilling to sign for whatever reason you trade them to the highest bidder while there is still time on their deals. I don't see it happening though. They both seem like they are too high in character for nonsense like that.

I've yet to see any pro-tanker argue that tanking is the only way. To win the cup you need several elite players and most teams get them from the top of the draft but there are definitely other ways to get them such as free agency, trades, or through great fortune in the draft by drafting multiple hall of famers in the late rounds like Detroit, multiple studs later in the first round like Anaheim, or studs in the second and 3rd rounds like Boston (although they still had 2 top 5 picks). People look to the draft because that's the element most under control of the team because you can try to get these players in Free Agency but it's hard because: A) They don't become available very often and B) Those players have the ability to sign anywhere and will usually take a big payday from a team like the Rangers rather than sign with Buffalo You can try to get these players through trade but you're either gambling on unknown potential and some luck just like with the draft or you're paying through the ears for an established stud in the league so it's pricey. The rest of the teams who have won the cup had multiple top 5 draft picks to acquire the elite talent needed to win including Chicago, LA, Pittsburgh, and Carolina.

Crazy stuff. I imagine LA will send him to the AHL then recall him for the playoffs and try to move him in the offseason. To move him they'll either agree to retain a portion of his salary and cap hit to trade him or trade him as a negative value (like Richards and a 6th rounder for a 7th rounder or something along those lines). They won't get much cap relief at all though. From what I've read this move only saves them the pro-rated percentage of $925,000 but they also have to call someone up to replace him which should eat most of that even if it's a player on an ELC.

You can definitely win without tanking and you can definitely tank without winning but a number of teams that are perennial contenders got that way by acquiring blue chips players by drafting high for multiple years. The fact of the matter is that this team has been completely devoid of quality centers since 7/1/07 and the brain trust decided that the best way to remedy the situation was a complete rebuild in order to draft some legitimate blue chip prospects who could serve as cornerstones for this franchise. It doesn't guarantee anything but I definitely think our chances will be better with McEichel, Reinhart, Girgensons, and Grigorenko as our likely pivot men going forward than if we had to pin our hopes to Ennis, Hodgson, Grigorenko, and McCormick as our centers. The degree to which we've blown things up has also given us the opportunity to grab guys like Reinhart, Zadorov, Lemieux, Compher, Bailey, and Girgensons whom we wouldn't have been able to draft without selling off the old core or finishing as poorly as we did to grab Lemieux and Reinhart.

Yep. Should make it easy to hunt for free agents too. Offering long term contracts to anyone who meets that super high thresh hold shouldn't cause any issues long term for the club either.

He's better than Hodgson and not much more expensive but he's also about 5 years older. If I wasn't afraid of the chance that he'd de-rail the tank enough to move us up from the bottom spot I'd be all in favor of picking him up. As it stands though I hope one of the other main bottom feeders (Edmonton, Carolina, or Phoenix) pick him up and he helps them win some games and give us some breathing room. 6 years left counting this season so only 5 seasons left after April.

Tell that to Magic Johnson or the countless other straight people who got aids from dirty needles, transfusions, or unprotected sex with people of the opposite sex. It was a joke. Was it in bad taste? Sure. Was it so over the line that it warrants the reaction it got when this board jokes about rape, pillaging, baby eating, and countless sexual innuendo jokes directed at Spendchz, Biodork, Josie, and some people's infatuation with the owner's wife? I don't think so but I guess that's for the moderators to decide.

He's definitely improved. I remember him constantly falling and flopping like a forward version of Hasek when he first got here but he's much more like a bull on skates now.

Wow. A little over sensitive, are we? Maybe he got aids from using dirty heroin needles and not from having unprotected buttsecks with men in leather bars. I don't care if he really was gay or not, but I don't like the guy and if he did get stricken with aids (maybe from a tainted blood transfusion or some other non gay way), I'd still get a chuckle out of it. Same goes for Tom Brady, Dan Marino, Jimmy Johnson, Jerry Jones, Michael Irvin, Bill Belichick, Zdeno Chara, Milan Lucic, Brad dick nose Marchand, and a host of other people I'd like to see die in a fire. Congrats on having the moral authority to put me in my place though. Don't you have some calf raises to do or something?

The hit is way worse if they trade his contract to someone else though. I remember reading about it on this board when we were discussing trading Ehrhoff. If we held onto him and he retired the cap recapture penalty was one amount but if we traded him away and he retired from another team it was way worse. There's no way Chicago would trade Hossa and risk that just like Murray bought out Ehrhoff rather than risk the future recaptured penalty because it would have been worse if he had traded him. Imagine what Ehrhoff would have been worth on the trade market if Murray wasn't worried about cap recapture.

Good God that's pricey. A carton of Pall Malls runs about $35 here at the Murphy's Gas station near the Wal-Mart and that's when I have no coupons and there's no 50 cents off a pack/$5 off a carton promos and I think that's too expensive.

I figured his aids was acting up again.

If Hossa gets traded and then retires before his contract runs out isn't Chicago on the hook for the bulk of his cap recapture? I assume they would be which is why we didn't trade Ehrhoff and just bought him out so I doubt Chicago would trade him and risk the same situation.

He needs to petition the neighborhood to rename his street Baby Eater Lane or something along those lines.