hawker14 said:
bouchard isn't going anywhere for the next three seasons. same with burns. and walz, rolston and fernandez are replaceable, they're not superstars.
even if o'sullivan isn't ready now (which i don't believe) he'll be ready before those guys leave.
i don't think it's a good move for the wild to move him. it's a horrible move !
I can see Bouchard leaving. The guy oozes with talent but doesn't get the chance in Minnesota. His one year contracts make me think he'll bolt when he gets his chance. Walz will be a lot older when O'Sullivan makes his impact and probably be out. Burns is a toss up. He'll be retained.
The problem is Pouliot is also coming up. So who do you replace? Gaborik, Bouchard, Rolston? How do you get talent without taking it away from the rookies? As it stood...
Pouliot/O'Sullivan/Voloshenko - Walz - Gaborik
Bouchard - White - Rolston
Veileux - Koivu - Weinhandl
Choiunard - Boogaard
Throw in a free agent or two, Minnesota is looking at a situation where the West gets tougher (Tanguay + Iginla, Luongo to Vancouver, Colorado retaining Sakic, though the 'weakest' of the bunch) and they have a problem penning in O'Sullivan while trying to challenge the West for a bid for the cup. Who knows what O'Sullivan would have done for the team? Score 20 goals? 30 goals? He's a PROSPECT. To put it straight, Minnesota needed to upgrade their offense. The problem was, it cost us O'Sullivan. And personally, right now, a prospect for a proven is a damn good deal. O'Sullivan could reinjure his shoulder again, who knows?
As it stands we have
Demitra - Walz - Gaborik
Bouchard - White - Rolston
Veilleux - Koivu - Weinhandl
- Choiunard - Boogaard
With that, we can add another quality free agent, without having to worry about where do we pen in O'Sullivan. As it stands:
We have:
1/ Demitra
2/ Gaborik
3/ Walz
4/ Choiunard
5/ Veilleux
6/ Koivu
7/ Boogaard
8/ White
9/ /Bouchard
10/ Weinhandl
11/ Rolston
12/
13/
14/ Skoula
15/ Burns
16/ Foster
17/ Nummelin/Ratchuk
18/ Schultz
19/
20/
21/
We got only two spots going for us and Lemaire likes to ice seven defenseman, so we got three spots and usually two of them sit in the press box. Usually the rookies sit in the press box (Boogaard is an exception and Wanvig got on Lemaire's bad side). I can see O'Sullivan's year going the same was as Bouchard's first year. And then you guys would ***** and moan about the development of O'Sullivan and how he isn't making an impact.
This is a prospect for a PROVEN talent. We needed goal scorers badly. We needed to upgrade our team and you know what? We got one. You guys ***** and moan about Minnesota not scoring a lot of goals and playing 'boring' hockey. WE NEVER HAD THE EFFING TALENT! And now we are getting talent.
How the hell is Minnesota suppose to compete given the crop of UFAs this year? Elias is commanding too much money, Parrish isn't exactly a light them up player and he's extremely streaky. Savard is iffy, who else?
We would basically be icing the damn team we had last year. And guess what? The West just got tougher this year. Luongo to Vancouver. Tanguay to Calgary. We're not done yet. Only Edmonton and Colorado look like crap but the West is getting tougher each year. Nashville, Detroit, San Jose, Vancouver, Dallas...I could go on about how the West, especially the Northwest is getting tougher.
You really want to face Théodore, Luongo, Roloson, and Kipper with an unproven rookie 'phenom' and a disgruntled winger that'll sit out because 1) he didn't get the talent needed to take the team a step further 2) wants more money because hs is the number 1 go to guy in Minnesota and we don't want to pay him that kind of money because he's still streaky. We had no players outside Rolston, Bouchard (who isn't a goal scorer!), White, and Gaborik? Yeah that'll scare people.
They had to keep up. LA is rebuilding, Minnesota is transiting. They had a deep enough prospect group to move one of them. Unfortunately LA didn't want Pouliot or Voloshenko, and Minnesota had to take it in the *** to move their team forward.
