2023-24 NHL Misc. Thread
- Thread starter jeffbear
- Start date
CanadaCanes
Well-known member
Geoff’s boy got paid!!! A bit of a small sample size to go 8 years right off the hop…but he looks like a future pp quarterback and good young player. Brett Pesce smiles at that money and term!
polarbare
Well-known member
unbelievable. I mean, maybe it turns out to be a good contract, but that's Svechnikov money based on 1 good year. GMs must think the cap is going to soar.
Well, the NHL's current deal is probably sustainable ... seeing as how it's so freaking cheap, and housed with two networks that aren't going anywhere. The local TV revenue for teams is another matter, but I'd guess the Canadian teams are better off than their US counterparts in that regard ... for once. And again, I know nobody paid any attention to Ottawa after their terrible start, but Sanderson was really freaking good for them. They're in a position where they have to over-pay a bit for longer terms and they see him as a foundational player. It's not as big a gamble as it looks from a distance.
CanadaCanes
Well-known member
They locked up Stutzle, B.Tkachuk, Sanderson, Chabot and Norris as a pretty good core...not sure what is going to happen to Batherson with that pending harassment stuff hanging over head, but all and all, in that market, to lock up your foundation pieces long term is a major accomplishment.
It's not like they're going to be cap challenged in the near future.
Ottawa did exactly what Carolina did a few years ago. They wrapped up a competent young core of players to long-ish term, reasonable contracts. That will give you the base to compete so long as those guys continue to grow and produce and you can be smart about filling out the roster around them. It's a playbook that has generally worked ... at least in terms of getting teams to the point that they're consistently relevant.
Probably almost everyone here was there when Canes traded up and drafted him. Time flies.
LJG
Well-known member
I think I was in CO for that draft.
I was, however, sitting at the south end in 2006 when he made a Slug crap his pants and flip the puck over the glass for a delay of game penalty that led to heroics at our end also! Yay!
To be fair, that does seem like a really long time ago. Because it's been 19 years. Time may fly, but only so fast.
He and Cam Barker spent the whole draft year moving in and out of the top North American skater in the rankings. Ovechkin went 1st, Malkin 2nd, Barker 3rd. After the Blackhawks picked Barker, I saw Jackets GM Doug MacLean coming out one of the hallways under the seats and I knew Ladd was next to us.
The Canes sent the 8th and 59th overall picks to Columbus. The Jackets picked Alexandre Picard 8th and Kyle Wharton with the other pick. Picard played 67 NHL games, Wharton never played in the league and played mostly overseas.
It was such a weird draft pool. Ladd had a solid if unspectacular career but Carolina trading up to get him felt like absolutely everything. And when you look back, it kind of was. The Canes had immediate, short term needs up front. Ovechkin and Malkin sucked all the air out of the room, but a normal draft year is gonna offer some secondary scoring pop at some point. Carolina badly needed to hit on an impact forward in that draft and literally the only other first round forward to pop hard out of that draft (other than Ovie and Malkin) was Blake Wheeler ... and he was a high schooler who wasn't going to be ready anytime soon. And Phoenix got absolutely dragged for taking a reach on him. Otherwise, you're talking Travis Zajac, Drew Stafford and Alex Radulov. Woo freaking hoo.
Seriously, scroll through that draft list and check. It's almost all dreck all the way down aside from a sprinkling of decent D (Barker, Green, Edler) and a couple of journeymen goalies. Then you hit a few long shots like Pecca Rinne and David Krejci but most drafts have one or two of those. It was a wet pile of hay of a draft, even though we all remember it fondly because it was in our barn and we got a popular player out of the first round. If Rutherford had held on to that 8th pick, he probably ends up with Picard or Stafford or maybe he reaches for "his kind of forward" and takes Zajac. Not a ton of fond memories of that draft if that had happened, let me tell ya.
Seriously, scroll through that draft list and check. It's almost all dreck all the way down aside from a sprinkling of decent D (Barker, Green, Edler) and a couple of journeymen goalies. Then you hit a few long shots like Pecca Rinne and David Krejci but most drafts have one or two of those. It was a wet pile of hay of a draft, even though we all remember it fondly because it was in our barn and we got a popular player out of the first round. If Rutherford had held on to that 8th pick, he probably ends up with Picard or Stafford or maybe he reaches for "his kind of forward" and takes Zajac. Not a ton of fond memories of that draft if that had happened, let me tell ya.
Wojtek Wolski too but his stock dropped like a rock after an assault charge right before the draft. There was also talk of the Canes trading back into the first round to get either Rob Schremp or Kris Chucko, neither of whom amounted to anything. Krecji was the 21st ranked European skater, so he wasn’t a first rounder. But taking a look at the final draft rankings? Top 10 North American skaters…Ladd, Barker, Picard, Kyle Chipchura, Wolski, Boris Valabik, Stafford, Dave Bolland, Mike Green, Schremp. Woof. Zajac was 15, Wheeler was 17. Europe wasn’t any better. Radulski was 9th with Rostislav Olesz, Lauri Tukonen and Viktor Alexandrov ahead of him.
Yeah ... just bad options everywhere. And as dumb as the Coyotes draft program was most of the time, they were absolutely correct to bypass all that junk and take a flyer on an American high school kid with some serious upside. They got universally roasted for picking Wheeler and never did end up signing him ... and it took at USHL season followed by three college seasons before he was ready for the NHL in Boston, but the guy was a solid contributor from there and bloomed into a legit top line forward in Winnipeg. Meanwhile, other than having a mystic monk with a crystal ball alert out on Krejci, if you were looking for a high end forward in that draft, then outside of the top 2 picks you were kind of screwed.
NoMich
Well-known member
Wait! Hold on! Mike Babcock is a terrible human being? Bummer for the Blue Jackets that this revelation is just now coming out after they hired him. Hoo boy! I mean, there is no way in hell they would've hired him if his reputation had been known for a while now.