right around the time duncan and i were puttin' back our second pints on a toronto patio last night, darryl sutter was, presumeably, filing the paperwork that put warrener, eriksson & nilson on waivers.
while warrener and eriksson seemed like obvious moves (untradeable, unplayable guys), i'm a little surprised at the inclusion of nilson. at 1 million/yr, with a year left on his contract [wasn't the extension signed just this past year ??!] and the only natural LW left in a flaming C, i thought marcus a shoo-in for a 3rd/4th line position. he proved his value at the worlds this past may, showing he still had some games left in him, and at bargain basement pricing, i'm not convinced getting rid of him is a smart move.
the sutter good-or-bad debate continues.
freeing up all or some of the aforementioned players cap space (2.5, 1.5, 1 million respectively), pending buyouts or league interest (*ahem*unlikely) is pretty huge in our current situation. what would have been equally huge, and a major point of agreement between my last night's drinking mate, is if sutter had NOT signed eriksson or mark smith last year, thereby giving any of the equally [some might say MORE] capable youngsters a season's worth of experience in low-minute play. instead, we've lost some of our top prospects to europe [taratukhin, puustinen], others turn RFA july 1 [van der gulik, stevenson, maki], while duds like kris chuko remain firmly on the farm with no promotion in sight.
it's actually kindof dire.
that's it for now.
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what would have been equally huge, and a major point of agreement between my last night's drinking mate, is if sutter had NOT signed eriksson or mark smith last year
Or Primeau. Or Nilson. To multi-year deals (!!). And Warrener should have hit the waiver-wire last June. And I wont even include Aucoin, who was decent albeit poor value considering his $4M contract.
Let's face it: the previous summer was replete with utter boobery. Sutter scared away two viable replacement level players and retained or signed all the wrong sorts of guys. He's slowly digging himself out now, but it's cost the club Tanguay, 8 places in the draft, Taratukhin, a year of development for Giordano and an as of yet unknown amount of money (depending on buy-outs and such). And who knows how much better the team could have been last year without all the dead weight.
Oh well. He still has time to right the ship I guess.
All that buyout talk on the patio was obviously heard loud and clear in Calgary. Good thing that mic he put on me a couple of months ago still works.
Yes, last summer sucked. This summer: Fine so far. I think I'm OK with Nystrom and Primeau playing on a fourth line, and Conroy playing on a third line, and McElhinney as the backup goalie.
If those are their roles.
well, if he heard the buyout conversation, D, then let's hope he heard the "give a guy a role, then let him play it" talk.
right ?
Toronto patio? Wait a minute...
Of course, if I was actually around lately it might not have taken me a week to notice... : (
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