Trettioåtta

He's a multimillionare who will secure a job in the front office when he retires, should he want it, his and his kids futures would be fine even if he walked away now

Yeah i saw that - i'm not a huge fan of young captains, just not sure they have experienced enough life to be a true leader in the room. Although Toews seems like a good captain as he is so mature/serious

He has hit both your criteria for the last 3 years, so it seems doable. Dallas isn't an overly physical team either

Does the crowd still chant for that fake draft pick when the Sabres are winning by a lot? (The Tokyo Kantanas was it?)

My favourite tradition, albeit a recently acquired one, is how Deluca moans in every thread - in a world that is ever changing, it is refreshing to have a pillar of consistency in my life A tradition i also really like is when the clocks go forward in America, as it means i have two weeks of games starting an hour earlier, so i can get to bed for 2am instead of 3am :P

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=640755

So has anyone played the demo? If so thoughts? Miller is the top rated goalie in the game i believe.

Why do things have to be mutually exclusive? Just because you are altering the back office or altering merch etc. does not mean you can't also make changes on the hockey side. Nothing has happened this off season because of the cba - it is that simple. TBH, i have heard rumours that DR and LR were the ones pushing for this third jersey. If we fire them, then everyone's problems are solved.

I really like those gold ones. I also quite like the preds mustard yellow in a weird way. It would make my day if we had a preseason game and both wore our yellow ones :P

Is your name TrueBluePhD or Garth? http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog/GARTH/Turris-Is-Ennis-Comparable/6/46310

Yeah, true, still 6 years just seems so short - but then i guess in 6 years i could be married with kids o-O, so it's all relative

Seems odd that they would vut the cap by so much and cause trouble for most of the league as all it would mean is there would be a lot of NHl talent in the AHL probably. Does anyone know why they want the cba to only be 6 years long? Seems like a load of trouble to have to resort out in 6 years...

So by the next time they meet, they will have met and discussed the CBA for a grand total of around 140 minutes over the last 2 weeks

October 14th

It is to stop teams signing old guys to like a 5 year contract that goes 10, 10, 1, 0.5, 0.5 - which lowers the cap hit, then after year 2 the guy retires. So all along the avoidance of the cap was planned

Very sad to here. Sort of an end of an era

Football is a game of money, you can literally buy players, hockey requires you to give up assets instead. Not comparable in this way. And yes, obviously all players are available for a price - but that is basically a platitude. Why give up "an awful lot" for a player, when there is another one, who might not be as good but can be gotten without losing assets? You would have to gut your team to get any of the players on your list. Brown and Thornton would be the easiest two to get. Brown would have been cheap 6 months ago - but they would probably want Myers, Ennis, Foligno + before even considering trading their captain who literally lead them to the cup this year. Why would you want Thornton? The guy would cost a bomb, is old and is famous for being ###### in the playoffs?

Don't be thick. He said out there, by out there he does not mean in this known universe. He means vaguely available. Yes weirdly we could use Malkin and Crosby more probably, and whilst they are out there on planet earth somewhere, they are not presently available, or worth the cost.

Will this lock-out not really screw with the NHL's TC license etc. I would not want to spend loads of cash if the NHL has cancelled two seasons in 10 years...

Despite disagreeing with basically everything you have said for the last week. This i agree with. People here do have that attitude. I don't think money would hugely matter for Pheonix. But if he is moving his family, he might as well move them for some combination of money and a shot at the title.

Than and Then i agree with. But Loose and Lose make no sense until you accept that and purposefully remember that you mean the counter-intuitive one

The same deadbeat team who made it to the conference final? Remember the days of 06 and 07 when those deadbeat teams made it that far?

In the last three years he got 55, 60 and 50 points - that doesn't seem like a guy who is on a serious decline, a serious decline would be 60, 50, 40 points. The fact that he has played on one team is irrelevant? As is the fact it is in a different conference. Hockey is hockey. Nick Lidstrom played for one team out west, i really doubt he would have not been an all-star if he had moved teams. No he gets more than $3mill because he puts up 50+ points. He gets more than $4 million because he plays with a physical game, can score and can lead. You might not covet him like some here, but you make it sound like this guy is a third liner who is struggling to make his way in the world. He is the incumbent for the MM Leadership award. Yes he has only won two playoff series, but that is hardly his fault, the team has been bankrupt. How many playoffs did the Sabres win when we were going through all the ownership stuff? How many times did we even make it to the playoffs? "Washed up"? I guess that also means Stafford is washed up? As they had the same number of points, but Drew hit less, led this team to a lower position in the draft, and was less consistent. Last season Lidstrom was not the powerhouse Conn Smyth winning guy he was in 02, but he was not washed up. I agree about the cap strapped thing, but i think people need to be responsible with their wording. The guy is worth $5 million for the next 2 years, easily, he may even be worth $7.5 million for 2 years. He is probably not worth $7.5 million in 4 years, but you could say that we can cross that bridge when we come to it, as these contracts have never hurt teams in the past (although that could also be risky as there is a new CBA looming)

The guy is a 50 point scorer with leadership abilities $4 million would be a pay cut and a steal. $3 mill would be moronic. The guy is worth $5 million easily. The guy would have been 3rd on our team in points. $7.5 is overkill, but let's not pretend he is some useless bum. Joel Ward gets $3 million and he is a 4th liner Yes but we also need Hecht and Boyes to resign young guys

One of the reasons other teams have gotten away with it is because: a) wasn't an over 35 contract b) the cap always went up enough c) the cba didn't penalise it With a new CBA it could be a much riskier signing. Especially as he would probably get a NMC. It would be a lot to pay for him over the next 2 years, however, the last 2 years could be crippling. We have our younger guys to resign and on a 4 year contract it isn't out of the realm that we would have to re-sign Girgs/Grigs before he is off the books