7 RFA's currently holding out, and some fairly significant names (Nylander, Reinhart, Nurse, Morrissey, Theodore, Ritchie, Wood). That has to be such a pain in the ass when you're trying to put a roster together.
Yeah I think under normal circumstances San Jose wouldn't even get a conversation started on Karlsson without including Meier, likely just wouldn't be able to compete in those talks at all. Unfortunately the Sens removed themselves of virtually any leverage.
I'm fairly certain Vegas would have topped this return back at the deadline if the Sens weren't insisting on them taking Ryan at the time.
Has anyone been keeping tabs on the waiver wire order? Coild have sworn I was right near the top and don't recall making a waiver claim but currently sit 14th. Maybe I'm getting my leagues mixed up.
If you asked me to come up with the perfect left handed partner to play the stay at home role on the top pair with either of those two offensive RHD, Vlasic would have to be right near the top of the list. To have all three of them in their prime is such a luxury.
Yeah under normal circumstances I don't think there's any way San Jose would be able to be competitive in talks for a guy like Karlsson without putting Meier on the table.
Balcers at least seems like an interesting lottery ticket. Latvian prospect who played his formative years in Norway. Scored 40 goals in 66 games in his lone WHL season and then went on to lead the Sharks AHL team in scoring this past year as a rookie pro. Might be some scoring line upside there.
It's really just a bunch of stuff. Tierney is a good young top 9 center but nothing to get overly excited about and Norris projects to be similar at best. They'll have to hit on the draft picks to make this looking better down the line. As of now Ottawa didn't get a single piece that you would project to be a high end contributor.
Considering what Vegas gave up to get Tatar, this seems like an overly large investment in Pacioretty. He either costs them a big extension well into his 30s or walks after the year, doesn't seem like a smart move.
Keepers -
LW/C Jamie Benn
LW/RW Rickard Rakell
C Aleksander Barkov
C/RW Tyler Johnson
LW Timo Maier
RW Corey Perry
RW Ondrej Kase
RW Jesse Puljujarvi
D Alex Pietrangelo
D Darnell Nurse
D Thomas Chabot
D Samuel Girard
G Tuukka Rask
G Cam Talbot
G James Reimer
We need steady innings for the next couple years no matter what, and the money is there to spend right now. I don't see any reason to avoid any opportunity to add a durable, quality veteran on a reasonable deal.
Need to have some quality and consistency on the field regardless of whether we are truly competing in the next couple seasons.