Rumor: In-season Proposals, Rumors, Free Agents & Roster Moves (related topics) LXXX

[AllAboutAvs]

People say that Sakic and Roy would be stupid to go into next season hoping for one of Bigras/Siemens to be ready to step in and I agree with that. However isn't as stupid for them to go into next season and hoping they will find 2 top-4 dmen (two UFAs or one UFA and one by trading ROR)?

What I get from this TDL is that sakic/Roy are hedging their bets. Either way they go, last year FA showed us how difficult it is to sign top-4 FA dmen unless you overpay quite a bit. You can always overpay on one but two is stupid. Also they still have hope to re-sign ROR. What if they do succeed. Then they have to find two which is next to impossible again unless you overpay quite a bit and with the contract upgrades coming up to EJ, MacK, Barrie, and maybe McGinn (if they decide to keep him), that would be very stupid.

So as I said they are hedging their bets. If they find 2 top-4 dmen it pushes Hejda down to the 3rd pairing (which I think everybody would be fine with) and some of Holden/Guenin/Stuart/Redmond out of the lineup. If they find only one, they have Hejda playing with Barrie and it still pushes Guenin out. And if they don't find any, they still have Hejda that can play with EJ which is certainly far from ideal.

Hejda on a lesser workload is not a bad thing until one of our kids is ready which should take only one more year max.

People say not trading Hejda was bad GMing. I'd argue that hedging your bets was actually good GMing.

 

[cgf]

Like i said, Hedja will be Barrie OR EJs partner. If the new guy, wether that's through FA or a trade, isn't ready, as you suggest, for top pair then Hedja will be on the top pair again (sigh).

I doubt they are handcuffing themselves into just looking at Dmen if they need to trade RoR. It will depend on how FA goes. If we can sign that top4 Dman then the bigger hole needing to be filled will be in the top6 left by RoR. In which case we should look to trade him for a forward.

ROR will be traded long before UFA starts though. If this was the NFL and FA came before the draft that would be quite plausible, but with the way the NHL schedules its offseason, we won't get the opportunity to check out UFA before moving ROR, and the UFA EJ partners (other than Sekera) are all short-term solutions, meaning their addition doesn't negate the need for a Zadorov.

It's not a question of limiting themselves, it's a question of making the biggest decision of their managerial lives work for the club, and for that to happen we have to pull a young LHD like Zads or Morrissey in the deal. Just moving ROR for a quantity package that's "fair value" doesn't get it done and doesn't leave them with the legacy their playing days left. They have to use this trade to finish off the defensive rebuild to come out of this situation with a win, assuming an extension isn't on the table.

 

[RockLobster]

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