Well, THAT was underwhelming.
The Trades
Did like the Staois trade straight up. Johnson is gone end of the year so this is purely about trimming next years Cap hit and getting a 3rd round pick.
Did not like the Grebeshkov trade before and it makes even less sense now. If Visnovsky was a trade target then keeping Grebs makes a lot of sense - pump his value with powerplay and butter minutes and trade him NEXT year.
Did not like the Visnovsky trade. I haven't liked Whitney since his full-on regression in Pittsburgh and I liked him less once he signed an inflated deal based on best before dated play (which makes him an Oiler by default I guess). No draft pick? Dear god.
The Waiver
Ryan Jones will be a better NHL player than JF Jacques. whoop-de-freaking-do
The Trades Not Made
How many smallish, duplicate skill-set forwards do we have on this team? How many were traded today. Reason enough to fire Tambellini right there. Moreau still with the team? And Pisani and Comrie are still with the team?
Epic failure. Epic. No excuse good enough for that.
One (Possible) Saving Grace
Of 3 trades made, only 1 makes any sense IF Tambellini is actually planning on the buy-outs (Nilsson, POS) and the reloading of the roster (Jagr) for next year - which I believe to be true btw. If, however, this is the start of a full on rebuild (which I will believe when seen) then the trades make some sort of sense.
Look, the total possible Cap dump here is around $7.5 million less a few replacements (I would probably keep Johnson just so that I can retain a veneer of respectability - he is a 'veteran' defenseman after all). Drop Pisani and Comrie and the savings are now in excess of $10 million - even factoring in some replacements.
Tambellini now has a chance to dump/trade any/all of the remaining forwards that have to go. I figure that one, maybe two, can be legitimately traded.
Using a ratio of 1/2 (half of what goes out comes back in; i.e. Moreau for a 4th and some scrub with a guaranteed one-way contract) the resulting Cap savings could be as much as another $2 million.
With any luck Khabby doesn't come back (another $3+ million) and Souray becomes another off-season casualty/trade (using the 1/2 ratio that is another $2.7 million).
So here's the trick - use what you have. And what you have is a team as bad as it will ever get (I hope), a few decent veteran pieces, some good prospects and a whack of Cap space and budget play.
THAT first part (the bad team bit) is the one, possible, saving grace that comes out of a day like today.
Given that Visnovsky, Grebeshkov and, even, Staois aren't easy pieces to replace on this team (mostly because they comprised some of the few quality pieces on it), don't try to replace them.
At least not yet. Make signing, or trading for, ONE decent player the goal of the off-season (Seidenburg maybe?) - it worked for Phoenix (Sauer) and go from there.
Keep Eberle and co. off the roster for now and let Nilsson/POS/Brule et al play out their contracts or become trade deadline tradebait. The in-season goal is to collect ONE more decent player and collect another top-3 pick in 2011.
Hemsky is the only real question mark in this whole process and I have to hope that even Tambellini can't screw that trade up.
A decent management team could make lemonade out of this fiasco.
Hence my hopes aren't all that high.
F&*k me.
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Have a great evening everyone.
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7 comments:
If nothing else, I'll forever stop using the phrase "Tambellini couldn't possibly fuck things up even more" because clearly, he's gifted.
The Grebeshkov trade, I don't mind even though I thought we'd be able to get more. Trading our best defenseman (and few high priced players actually worth his salary) for basically a bigger version of Grebeshkov with a North American passport, I don't like. I've not been a fan of Whitney for a long time, so I certainly don't see the upside to this move. Not now, not 3 years from now.
I almost wish they wouldn't have traded Staios. Afterall, they're clearly not going to improve in the offseason, so the $2.7M handcuffs is probably a good thing for at least one more year and keep one of the few vetran leaders who actually provides leadership around.
I'm a bit puzzled at slagging him for not ditching the small forwards. Do you think that there was a market for them? I'd guess not.
BTW, was flipping through your old posts and saw that you and your wife had a kid. Very belated congratulations to you both.
Thanks Tyler :-)
I think there should have been a market for Comrie and possibly a market for Pisani. I don't think they even tried with Comrie.
The trick for me, however, is the use of the Cap space he opened up.
Say there is a team out there that has a guy signed to a 4 year contract of some $3.5 to $4.0 million a year. And the guy obviously isn't worth it.
POS for that guy and a nice draft pick works if the idea is to complete a full tear down and rebuild.
How about Tom Preissing in Colorado? Nilsson represents a guy they might actually use and some $750k in saved Cap ($250k in budget dollars).
Heck - Moreau to Montreal for Laraque and a pick should work shouldn't it? Montreal saves on Cap and gets a player they can use all for the cost of a guy they don't want (were going to buy out anyways) and a draft pick?
Not a bad deal for Montreal. How about JFJ in the same scenario?
Using some imagination and a little cash - all of which would have been spend under the original plan anyways - I think some deals were there.
I don't think this is all THAT hard to do. I really don't.
heh, my bad
JFJ is out for the season
fair enough
They didn't move Sykora at the deadline when they could've got something for him. Keeping Comrie looks like history repeating itself. I don't get it unless they plan to re-sign him (isn't there some rule about not being able to extend a UFA's contract that was only 1 year?).
I'm not too sure there was a market for Pisani. I mean, Walker got a 7th, and he had a much easier contract to absorb. Personally, I'd rather keep him around and try to sign him cheap next year than send him away for a 7th round pick.
As for moving guys like O'Sullivan and Nilsson, I think those are moves that are more likely to happen at the draft or in the offseason when teams miss on free agents. Who knows, they might actually get something useful for Sully in the offseason, rather than just dumping him for a pick (which we already have a bunch of).
I'm still seething over the Lubo trade. The trading Lubo part doesn't bother me nearly as much as the trading for Whitney part does.
For Whitney, a 6th and some Cap space (albeit sizable) Anaheim gets the (much imo) better player and budget savings.
Maybe if the Oilers get a couple of effective stay-at-homes to take care of Gilbert and Whitney this can work but I'm not holding my breath.
The foot issues don't inspire confidence.
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