IKnowPhysics

Weber may not fix any problems NOW, but he absolutely makes the team better in the long run. Worse case scenario, you get him, and you suddenly have trade bait for the other pieces you're missing.

Phoenix local fiddly###### politics update: the guys trying to overturn the lease agreement made with the potential Coyotes potential buyer couldn't get enough petition signatures in on time to get it on the November ballet. That means that the sale to Greg Jamison could move forward, meaning the Coyotes are a little bit closer to long term stability. Does that affect Shane Doan? Who knows and/or cares. Also, as pictured in the article, the Phoenix Coyotes' three remaining fans:

I vote for "Free Agent Frenzzzzzzzz"

So's the top six potential for Ennis and Hodgson, but that's where we're headed, now isn't it. Hits don't correlate to winning. They don't correlate to anything. But when three players are added to a roster that increase the number of recorded hits by the entire team by 40+%, it could represent a change in the way the game is played by that team and a maybe a change in the way other teams play against that team. Or maybe it's just differently-entertaining hockey than what we're used to. I'd enjoy any of those results.

I'll resurrect one of my stat posts from a different thread a few days ago... If you add Doan and take away somebody, say Ellis, you net another 171 hits. putting you squarely at 5th in the NHL. 29th to 5th? That's one hell of a culture change. Edit: Ah ###### it. Let's do it. Let's go get Doan. Let's be the Eastern Conference badasses. As long as we're not totally rotten down the middle, we'll make the playoffs and we'll turn them into a war zone.

Somehow this ended up being the front page story on NHL.com today. Slow news day.

No argument there. The price that it comes at seems to be pure scoring ability. Hit stats: Pominville 30 Doan 205

I like Doan. His player usage charting shows he's a strong two-way player with offensive talent, akin to Jason Pominville. His history shows consistency as a 50+ point getter and his intangibles demonstrate his veteran leadership. Is he worth $7.5M per year? He could be one of the few Chris Drury-like players still around, a player that the Sabres were willing to match at $7M+ to keep in 2007. If there's a problem, it's that the long-term value may not be there, mostly because of the effect of this year's super-inflated UFA period. Look at who his cap hit peers would be: Franchise-level veteran players and elite scorers in their prime command this level of salary (besides Gomez, lulz). Is Doan a franchise-level veteran a la Zdeno Chara and Jarome Iginla? I think, according to the cap hits of other highly-valued veteran scorers, he's worth closer to $6M per year. And then there's the Sabres' upcoming potential salary commitments. Sabres have $10.5M in cap space before signing Ennis and Kaleta (and Brennan?) this year and will have to think about about resigning Regehr, Leopold, Hodgson, Enroth, among others during this upcoming year for next year. A salary dump may be necessary (Stafford? Leopold? Sekera?). I like Doan, but if this is the move we make, this is the move we make for a while (without salary dumping), because that is a lot of money. And no bitching about his salary or our depth at center. This sort of money makes Bobby Ryan look like a steal.

DR said he's not interested, per interview on WGR this past week.

Photograph that's inspiring the sculpture:

Not sure if troll. In any case, some things are better than winning. Like cupholders on pissers.

Love at first sight?

Statues of image 1 on pedastals of image 2.

Gragnani signs a two-way with Carolina, $800k/$105k. http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=400374

Decent interview by Schopp; asked about as direct questions as you can, politely, and received about as direct answers as you can, reasonably. Sounds like Cody Hodgson's playing well. Sounds like FA's mostly a dry hole, save some depth signings. Sounds like they're working hard to construct a big move, but nothing materializing yet. Sounds like they're satisfied with Lindy, and players voicing opposition were whining. Sounds like absolutely no on Semin, and some attempt for Doan. -- TSN says Nash list down to Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings, New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins and San Jose Sharks. Any reality about cap space and gutting their team in return aside, please not the ###### Bruins. No Nash in the North East. -- Neil resigns in Ottawa for a few years. I think the Northeast is just going total UFC for the next half-decade. The only team in the NE not saltier than the balls of a fat man at a pretzel eating contest in Miami is the Leafs. Perhaps they could un-buyout Darcy Tucker, who's still on the payroll this year (and next, lol).

Ok then. I'm fine with that. Let's move on.

Article effectively illustrates a few points why if Semin came to Buffalo, it could be disasterous. 1) Author illustrates Semin's production decline as Washington shifts from an offense first team into a two-way team. Buffalo, under Lindy Ruff, is a team that expcts all players to play two way- this isn't Semin's game, and his production could suffer. 2) Author illustrates how his high level of skill and low production could lead to the perception of him being lazy, which would infuriate many Buffalo fans. See: Tim Connolly, Taylor Pyatt, Miroslav Satan (later on). 3) Author illustrates how his production inconsistencies would lead to the perception of him being streaky. See: Drew Stafford, Maxim Afinogenov. Looking at the player usage charts, I'd say that Tampa Bay would be a good fit. He'd add depth there. They've got role players playing their tough minutes, giving more offensive freedom to their top players (only a few teams do this, Captials included). If only they could afford him and the goaltending they need.

Oh ######, I think Drunkard's saying Chz has a bad case of "the angles." Let's get it on!

Maybe he got him in NHL '12. I like Oreo for Grig's (yuck) nickname. It's original, not too many syllables, and little kids can pronounce it. Grigorenko. Orenko. Oreo.

Bonus example: Doan's agent says Doan's finally ready to think about offers. He's been waiting for some civic politics in Phoenix to play out that might have influenced the future of the Coyotes. Ugh. That's like saying I'm not going run out of the collapsing cave I'm standing in because I'm wondering if that stalagmite on the floor over there is going to grow large enough to stop the roof from caving in on me. Except the problem is that without any market pressure, the cave's made of styrofoam, so I don't have to give a ###### anyway.

Troof.

I think it's just the few number of higher quality players available (as a result of GMs locking up players for longer terms) has lead to those players realizing that teams won't quickly turn away from them to sign alternatives because those alternatives don't exist. IE, teams can't turn away from Mike Richards at 5pm July 1 to sign Ville Leino because Leino doesn't exist in this UFA period. So the UFAs have been taking their sweet ###### time, resulting in anything of note anywhere happening about once every two days or so. YAWN. I'm fine with the moves that have been made, but I guess I expected a smaller UFA pool to be more fiercely fought over and signed quicker. Instead, the scarcity of talent has made UFA a seller's market on the seller's schedule.

Also, one week later, I'm calling it. Most boring UFA period ever.

Yes, let's not approach 23-47-8-4 before we fix this.

Blogger leads off by citing his own uncited article "Sabres bow out of Bobby Ryan Sweeps." http://www.queencitysports.net/2012/07/06/sources-sabres-bow-out-of-bobby-ryan-sweeps/ He proceeds to say that we're no longer interested in Ryan, but if he's still a Duck in 2-3 weeks, we could be interested again. What the ###### is that? It smells like a home-grown version of Hockey Buzz speculative ######.