I always enjoy the contrast between the supposed haul of everything including the kitchen sink that posters deem will be necessary to get a player vs what it actually ends up costing.
I also enjoy that when the Leafs are involved, the asking price always appear grossly steeper than it does for other teams.
Chychrun has been available forever, and no one has paid what the Coyotes are supposed to be asking. At what point as it goes unmet, with TDL closing in, do they become more motivated to drop their price or keep an unhappy player? Ultimately, sometimes the best deal is the one you don't make.
I like Chych and Crouse, but I'm not in love with them and I won't gut our prospects and picks for them. It's an automatic that Sandin goes in a deal for him, but I keep seeing Niemala being included as well, which is short-sighted.
Holl is a UFA. If he asks for $4-5 million, are we really paying him that? I thought we wanted to get better. Gio should be declining as soon as next year, which would see Brodie play LHD. That would leave our RHD as what? Liljegren, Timmins and...........? Niemala has real potential to provide a solid RHD on an ELC within the next 1-2 years.
As it stands, we are swapping out a young LHD on an ELC in Sandin to bring in a more highly paid (but very reasonable cost for what you get and with term as well) in Chych. Move Niemala and our RHD pipeline goes down significantly, and we are still trying to see what we have in Timmins who has yet to play 100 NHL games.
I'm down to improve our Team, but I am wary (and weary) of gutting our prospects and handcuffing our team in the immediate future, when we still have significant UFA's to sign in the next 2 years. Giving Justin Holl $4-5m as a UFA just doesn't do it for me.....
I want to see what we have in Knies and Niemala, and it would kind of be nice to have a pick in the 1st round of a deep draft for the first since dinosaurs roamed the Earth......
Interested to see what ends up transpiring but I hope we are measured with what we are prepared to trade. It would be crazy to hamstring our development for years in a year when we aren't even favorites, and we have significant players to re-sign. I don't think we are an All-In team, and we will need solid prospects who can potentially play for us next season to help us keep the band together and improving.