| What will Boston's new GM do to re-build the B's? |
Boston's always been cheap but they have been stung by massive negative PR for giving away both Thornton and Samsonov (even Denis Leary said it on Best Damn Sports Show) so they will likely buy some UFA's. However I think they will go for 2 or 3 guys that make $3-4 million instead of blowing their wad on Chara for $7.5 million.
If I'm Pete Chiarelli (who was the best athlete of my age group growing up in Ottawa), I sign
1) Marc Savard to center Glen Murray (if they can't trade Murray) and maybe Ryan Walter's son Ben on the 2nd line and I keep the effective Sturm-Bergeron-Boyes line intact.
The Bruins are expected to buy out Zhamnov and take a $1.35 million cap hit. Savard is the best UFA center this summer so this would make a lot of sense.
2) Ruslan Salei -- the Boston faithful will love his nasty physical game on D
3) trade Raycroft for a top-6 forward or top-5 D-man
4) offer Leetch a low-ball one-year deal.
Bruins' D thus far: Gill, Boynton, Stuart, Tanabe (RFA), Jurcina (up-and-comer), Alberts (physical young American played for Team USA at World Championships in May).
Posted by Peter M. at 6/1/2006 10:39:00 AM |
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| Dumb contracts even before free-agency begins! |
As shocked as I am by the amounts that Richards and McCabe were signed for, the biggest surprise is that those two deals were the first ones out of the gate and have (unfortunately) set the mark way higher than it should be. Both cases involve GM's who fear for their jobs, and acted out of desperation, and both will end up being moves that cripple their teams.
Tampa has about $20M invested in their top three forwards - ugly!
Toronto has slightly less than one-quarter of their cap space invested in their two veteran d-men, aren't even close to having a decent group on the blueline yet, and have considerable issues to deal with at forward and between the pipes - uglier!
It's amazing that a D-man who's a liability in his own end (by anyone with average speed) can get $5 million per season.
Every GM in the league has to be upset at T.O. and Tampa for their excessive stupidity.
Detroit may have to pony up $8 million per year to appease Lidstrom while impending UFA D-men like Blake, Jovanovski, Kubina, McKee, and Salei have to be excited about the likely inflationary effect of the McCabe deal.
Posted by Peter M. at 6/1/2006 10:07:00 AM |
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