When you're a team that doesn't spend to the cap, what is the motivation for not wanting to spend that much on a player and deciding it's better to move on? Clearly, we could be a better team if we kept some of these guys on, and it wasn't an artificial limit in the cap that prevented us from doing so,
My point is your claim that we've kept everyone we wanted to is a nothingburger. It's meaningless but you brandy it about as proof that there's nothing to worry about and we can sign anybody we want. Basically, the same thing could be said about every single team in the league; they all kept the guys they wanted, and let go or traded those they didn't want to keep. The Hawks traded Saad because they couldn't afford him under the cap? Nah, they just judged his value not to be high enough to justify making the moves required to keep him. Arizona traded Yandle to save money? Nope, they just didn't like him anymore and wanted to use their money elsewhere.
It's fine if you think we should have no issues signing the guys we want, personally, I think there are ways to make that happen (like trading off Smith, for futures, buying out Gaborik, ect) but to say we have always signed the guys we wanted to keep is verifiable false and even if you want to exclude smaller contracts like the 3 year ~3.5 mil per we offered Hemsky, and the one year we offered Stalberg that were both rejected by the players, and the whole Afredsson fiasco it's outright meaningless because you can apply the same logic to every team in the league.
[MOD] You know very well that this is not my point.[MOD] I say we should feel good about resigning Duchene because we seem to always get our big guys locked up without issue, and you come back with: "
It's meaningless but you brandy it about as proof that there's nothing to worry about and we can sign anybody we want."
Dude, my point has just as much 'merit' as anything else posted here. 'Proof' on HFSens is open to interpretation, whether its a rumour or a bunch of stats you've posted and interpreted to support your position. Rather than getting hung up on minutia, try and focus on what I'm saying.
To support my point that we should expect Duchene to be signed I suggest that we consider that we have always signed the core guys we have wanted to keep (Ryan, Hoffman, EK, etc...). We traded Turris to get Duchene, because we didn't want to commit big dollars and term to him, and so we flipped him and a couple first for a rather large upgrade which we will of course sign. PD targeted him for over a year, unless he wants to leave he will be signed.
And then you go and call my point verifiably false and then post a bunch of unverifiable 'stuff'. Just because we make an offer an it gets rejected doesn't mean we can't afford to go higher, it means we don't WANT to go higher for that player. This is the kind of negotiations that the whole board wants us to to, ie not over pay for guys, but I see you have no problem using this as your 'proof' of us being cheap when it suits your argument needs. Either way your evidence has no more strength than mine, is that not obvious to you? You don't agree, that's ok, lets not pretend that you have a stronger position. I have signed stars and core guys to back my claim, you have your interpretation of traded guys as your only backing, a backing that is open to be interpreted in the exact opposite way to suit my position.
Once again you seem hung up on altering the statement that I clarified in my last post. We have signed our stars/core/best players when we have wanted too. Of course we can't sign every complimentary player for an amount that THEY want, who can? My point, in the Duchene thread, is that we really have more reasons to be confident that he gets signed than not given our team's history with signing our star/core/best players. Alfie is a super clear (as it gets) example of us not WANTING to sing the guy at this ask, rather than not being ABLE to (evidenced further by EM/GM's decision to offer blank cheque when it looked like Alfie might actually leave), so I'm not sure why you keep bring up a situation that helps prove my point.
Also, Hemsky is not even close to guarantee to make us better at all, neither was Stalberg, Wingles, etc... And Turris? Sure we would be better if we ALSO had him, but what other asset would you rather have given up for Duchene? And how long before that AT BEST 6x6 looked to be another albatross contract that we couldn't get out of (I would not have wanted that from the get go). Having everyone on the team doesn't guarantee to make us better in the short or long term.
Why anyone would want to argue such a tenuous position so forcefully, especially when the more likely outcome is the one we all want, is beyond me. There is lots of other stuff to vent about that makes a whole lot more sense.
