Drag0nDan

Okposo finally plays well. Put him back with eakin... aaaaand tank

Heard a rumor about him being in rehab fwiw

I think I read it on Twitter but they said it best. The quote from moneyball "if he's a good hitter, why doesn't he hit good?" applies to me at least. If Hall is such a good player, why doesn't he play good?

I want a left winger who moves his feet coming out of the zone. But i guess we can't all get what we want.

I think once the dust settled a lot of folks on the board were a bit concerned about where it slotted people. Olofsson with cozens and staal never gelled. They tried like 3 different wingers with jack and hall before they decided on reinhart- and then moved hall off for olofsson. It was not a good fit, it messed with other fits throughout the roster, and essentially nudged skinner into a bottom 6 role, with players that weren't suited to playing with him. It was a big swing/big move, and it was a big whiff. What they ended up getting for their money was a terrible season, and a 2nd round pick.

Right. Between that there was the high salary that limits suitors, his poor play this year (and honestly prior - 29 goals across the last 3 seasons), and the fact that he's a skill winger that doesn't take draws, or kill penalties - all these things limited his value. I mean he has 19 points playing with jack for most of the time, and playing on a power play that for a stretch was one of the better ones in the league.

Easy to say that as an analyst. Do whats best for the team and organization, not your ego.

If only it was that guy we just signed... caggilulia or whatever.

2.25 mil cap hit, and he has 10 goals this year. Hall had 3 assists in the 13 games leading up to the deadline fwiw (before sitting for injury prevention) - and has 2 goals this year.

Imagine if skinner just pulls some greasy cheap shot... This is for taking my rightful position on jack's wing!

Boston gets a free trial for contract negotiations too - hopefully he does well so they lock him up. Cuz from what i saw, he's not the impact player on the ice that he believes he is.

Yeah - Foligno is more of a complete forward. He can take draws, hit, play a 200 foot game, kill penalties etc. He also has more goals than hall this year.

Who's giving more? Who even has the space to make it happen?

And Toronto overpaid. But they got what they felt they needed - Gritty forward who can play up in a pinch, hits, kills penalties, and can play on the power play. They did not want taylor hall - so the first round pick they traded was never in play.

Right - and what they're saying is that his list can be 10 teams, or it can be 2, or 1. Once boston got to his agent he may have just said - its boston - thats it. And there's nothing you can do there.

It certainly opens up his list of teams to be traded to though. It's some leverage in a negotiation vs. this situation with Hall.

"We found some creative ways to lose games, but you look at the way they're playing now, it's pretty exciting. They have a very bright future with all those young guys that are playing the right way right now... you can see that confidence growing." It isn't like he absolutely dragged Buffalo in that quote.

I expect Jack to be a professional. Captain/Face of franchise can't just say "i want out", and i only want to go here. If he does, prepare to sit out quite a while until they get a return they can live with - and enjoy the reputation of being an absolute crybaby who has no leadership qualities. He'd also get dragged through the media while the whole thing plays out.

Well... he's not on an expiring contract which eliminates a considerable amount of leverage.

There's a lot of factors - but at the end of the day... his play this season is the reason the return is as low as it was.

Why is it also so hard to fathom that he won't? It's possible that he becomes a regular nhl goalie, but I didn't see anything in his game that indicated that he would - obviously I can be wrong. My guess is they want ullmark back, and another goalie in free agency (or 2 others). UPL gets more starts at the AHL level to try and continue his development, and you have tokarski to back up UPL, and be the call up if you have injuries. Johansson could be that tokarski type guy, but they're already saddled with tokarski.

You don't include that he got the #1 free agent to sign with a bad buffalo team on a low risk 1 year deal though.

Probably both. There really isn't tons of room for lazar next season to be a center. Bjork isn't expensive, and is a bottom 6 left winger. They have Eichel, Reinhart, Cozens, Eakin (shudder), and Ruots that can play center. The left wing has skinner, asplund, rieder, olof and now Bjork. Rieder wont be back. Hedging your bets at bottom 6 winger that he can contribute there after sheahan, rieder, departures. I wonder how it fits with the overall scheme moving forward but the bottom 6 for next season would include - Mitts, Asplund, Thompson, Okposo, Bjork, Girgensons, Olofsson, Ruotsalainen. Then cozens, reinhart, jack, skinner as your top 6ers. I think there will be more trades in the offseason, reinhart/olofsson being the 2 likely to be dealt from the forward group. I think there will be players available that teams can't protect, and buffalo should be aggressive in trying to acquire them. I'm curious how it shakes out with the expansion draft for buffalo honestly, but right now it's tough to project. Hall pushed for it because while he wanted to be in buffalo he didn't want to get dumped somewhere without his choice.

We watched the games though, did he suddenly stop kicking juicy rebounds? Is he now able to move side to side adequately enough to stop cross ice passes? Maybe he's hasek now after 4 games. Despite stopping like 88 percent of shots in buffalo... id certainly be surprised if he was though, wouldn't you?

He sucks - but he won a hart trophy so you should overpay for him. Unfortunately the GM's trading for him likely watched him play this year - and most of his most recent games were during a historic losing streak where he looked terrible.