Williams may not ever get back to the Williams we saw while he was in his best days here. Two total reconstructions on the knee and a blown achilles tendon on the same leg does wonders to take away speed and Williams just looked totally out of place. We paid him $7 million for 9 goals the past two seasons when we really could have used his help. I'm not faulting him, obviously, for getting hurt but when you're a top line player and you're taking up a big part of our budget you need to spend some time on the ice. He has $7 million left on his deal and for Carolina we couldn't afford to chance it.
As far as my own baseless opinion goes, I don't think next year is going to be a strong year for Williams either by his standards. Maybe 25 goals and 50 points. I think the first half of the year will be slow for him and he'll catch his stride by December and put up pro rated 30-30 numbers for the remainder of the season to set up a pretty strong UFA season.
I loved Williams when he was here, but he was having trouble finding the net even when he was in the lineup there towards the end. He needed a change of scenery and he got one. I wish him the best of luck, but he's not what we need right now. He didn't click with Staal in several opportunities and that wasn't likely to change.
As for the prediction he'll outscore any forward not named Staal on Carolina, i'll go as far as to say he'll be outscored by Ruutu next season as well as Whitney. Heck, i'll say that his PPG will be lower than Matt Cullen.