Speculation: The Visnovsky Imperative

[nyscene]

I'm curious to see how our records difffers the last two years with Vis in the lineup vs. out of it.

 

[Yashin for President]

He's in the AHL b/c they didn't have cap space for his contract.

I understand that but if he was as good as Vis he would have been picked up on waivers and he wasn't. Cap hit wouldn't be an issue if he was as good as him. My point is Liles isn't that good. lol

 

[crasherino]

I'm afraid the damage is already done. The last offseason was the opportunity, and SnoWang struck out looking. They could have gotten a goalie. They could've have filled out some defensive depth. In order to do so, they would've had to eat Carkner's contract and pay some of Nino's on the way out. They were obviously not prepared to do what it took to improve.

The goalie market is considerably leaner than it was. The market for defense is tighter than the proverbial diamond-producing a**, and teams have yet to have the opportunity to resign their UFA's to be. It's going to get tighter.

At this point (such as it is), NYI is best off trying to do things that won't cost us dearly in terms of talent. That is, get some better option in net. Also, try to improve the third line, because Regin and Bouchard are not contributing at all. It may be time to move on from Bailey as well.

Last year the team struggled and Visnovsky came and righted the defensive roles, as Darth indicated. This time around we're still down one defender when Vis comes back, because the Donovan for Streit move was a failure. Vis is going to have to come back slowly and gingerly - I don't see him having the effect his initial presence had last year. In short, I'm completely pessimistic. I think this year is shot, and it is better to act as if next year is the real chance.

The situation is fixable, but it will cost real money. Plan for the offseason. Sign Vanek. If you can't, sign a serious veteran winger like Vrbata. Hell, sign both on the same day. Have a 'V' for Victory ceremony. Sign a Hiller or Halak. Sign an Orpik or Hannan (or both). With a real payroll we could have a real team.

Not to play what could have been but my perfect offseason would have been:

1. Niño and Poulin as a cornerstone of a deal for Bernier. If it would take extra picks, so be it. At the start of the season, I can't imagine Scrivens value being much higher than Poulins. And Garth was never really interested(according to Lombardi anyway).

2. Sign Regin for depth - just being realistic....Cappy isn't going to have 3 rookies in the line up and he's cheap.

3. Use the money save on PMB and Cal C. And spend it on Scuderi.

Two fwd spots open for Nelson to get his minutes, a solid Dman and a franchise goalie.

 

[A Pointed Stick]

Yes Snow decided to stand pat in the summer, but what true 'upgrades' were there...

...It's real tough to get better through signing UFA's. Rarely happens for any team. Isles have some blue chippers coming up, so we'll have to be patient I guess.

It isn't a "last summer" thing. Our problem in net, and our crap blueline have been evident and obvious for YEARS.

I can forgive striking out one summer. I can't forgive striking out over three of them, let alone all that time between the summers.

And it isn't like these issues jumped out from behind a wall in the past three weeks. But that is exactly how Snow has handled it, almost seemingly startled, bewildered, even betrayed that rookies weren't stepping in this year like 10 year veterans.

Is he out of his mind to expect different results than what we have seen, particularly with a $5 dollar coaching staff? YES!

 

[MJP]

I understand that but if he was as good as Vis he would have been picked up on waivers and he wasn't. Cap hit wouldn't be an issue if he was as good as him. My point is Liles isn't that good. lol

Right, but for out team he'd easily be one of our top Dman

 

[Jiggs]

Mjp, I agree with you on Liles. Our PP has gone to pot ever since Viz (and Moulson) was out of the lineup. At half the cap hit you'd think Liles would've been claimed off waivers or a trade (PMB for JML ...not sure what leafs need).

Throughout the nov/dec slide we haven't been able to move the puck out of our zone. CDH has done that so far so maybe they ride him and give him some pp minutes to see how he handles it(knock on wood).

They sure are waiting a long time to address the defense though. As their record suggests, too long.