GASabresIUFAN

KA states - "Clearing a path for Devon Sir! - Plan Levi a go!" TP replies - "Very good soldier." TP suggests - "Probably wouldn't hurt to get a defenseman or two to play in front of him" KA replies - "I'll take that under advisement, Sir!" TP replies - "Very well. Keep up the good work soldier, carry on!"

Schenn Chychrun Jensen Hronek Gostisbehere Gavirkov Ekholm Barrie Sandin Gustafsson McCabe Jack Johnson Orlov Zaitsev Mikkola Megna Stillman to Buffalo for depth purposes only (I hope) These are the D that have already changed teams (or re-signed in Jensen's case). I'm not saying all of them would have improved our team, but many would have. So who is left? Klingberg Krug Parayko Edmundson (hard pass) Kulikov (hard pass) Dumba Fabbro Provorov Justin Holl Justin Braun Eric Karlsson Soucy Shattenkirk (List courtesy of thefourthperiod.com)

Now that is a scary thought. I do think Tuch is likely done for the regular season.

Good, now we have a pick to draft Bloom's replacement. 🙂

@dudacek You asked if I thought KA was working on something bigger. I guess he wasn't. What's the plan now to improve the D? He can't honestly believe the 8 players he has right now are good enough to even get this team to the playoff or be significantly better next year. no, not entirely, but he is certainly getting more of the fanbase asking what the heck is going on and why won't he help this team.

I'll let you handle the anger for me this time.

Wow. That price was too expensive for KA? Interesting. That was a lot less than originally requested.

I've been wondering about that for two years. Still waiting. Hey if he gets a steal on Chychrun I'll be the first to post what a great get. I'd love to see that skill set here for the next two-plus years. I understand why you think the Stillman deal is an insurance policy against KA failing to get any upgrades to this defense during this deadline period. I understand what parts of the Stillman skill set intrigued KA (besides doing a friend a solid). After all, it's the same skill set (with the same issues) that attracted him to Lyubishkin. A pairing of Stillman and Lyubishkin also seems like a terrible idea. However, getting a proven player in the 5 would be a better insurance policy. That way if the big deal doesn't happen you still upgraded your team. If the big deal does happen then you have upgraded both your 2nd and 3rd pairings and your depth. Now, all we've done so far is added depth, but depth one hopes never plays.

Sure call it whatever you want, I don't like giving up assets for bad hockey players, especially bad hockey players with term.

What we are looking for is a good 5 (Bush is the 6), not another AAAA player masquerading as a 5 because our other options are worse. Honestly, it would almost be a bigger miracle than Thompson if Stillman turns out to be our 5 for the next season plus and is actually good.

There is one big difference. Tage has real talent while Stillman not so much. When your hope for him is that he becomes Lyubushkin, that's not really the result we are looking for.

I would have been thrilled with trading Bloom for 1) A similar D prospect for our pipeline - sort of a smaller version of Nylander for Jokiharju 2) A 24-year-old D with term or control who is a proven upgrade on Bryson and Clague and would force them down the depth chart. Someone like Schenn or Jensen or whomever. Sadly this is not Stillman. Stillman is an 8. Only to be used in an emergency. Stillman only plays in the top 6 on bad hockey NHL teams and that isn't us. He is no better than Fitz who we waived. Why trade for the same garbage we gave away for free?

Come to think of it, I would as well. He'd become this team's Toni Lydman.

@dudacek and @Thorny of your list of teams that are going to regret their actions this week, I think the Rags and Leafs are two that will regret it. Bos is having a surprise season their top forwards, Bergeron, Marchand and Krejci, are very close to the end of their careers. They are trying to strike while the iron is hot. TB also. They've won their Cups are trying to squeeze the last juice out of the orange. The NYR I don't understand. They are a young team built now, but also for the next decade. They are going to regret losing so much capital. I do love watching Tor flail away. They are so desperate to make a run they'll do anything and "sadly" I doubt it helps.

I don't think anyone, including myself, really wants short-term rentals unless they come dirt cheap. I want Jordan Greenway for example because he has two years left on his deal. Vejmelka is another perfect bridge upgrade. Chychrun on the higher end as well. One of the things I admired about Pitt back in the early part of their run was that used to use the trade deadline to fix long-term holes on their roster. Guys like Kunitz arrived in Pitt at the deadline and then stayed another 8 years. With the right transactions, KA can do this for us as well. However that means added a Chychrun not a Stillman.

Except the family wasn't starving for food, they were starving for quality food. It was starving for a decent top 6 D to play in front of Bryson and Clague. In your example, KA traded a crate of TP for a crate of processed beanie weenies, instead of getting the healthy food they actually needed.

KA knew who is homegrown core was this past off-season. He extended Samuelsson long-term and had 2 1st overall players in his top3 in Dahlin and Power. Dahlin at 22 was his most experienced D entering the season and he knew or should have known that a veteran presence was needed on the D. He got one for the goalies in Anderson and had 2 (Z and KO) for the forwards. Why not also get one for the D? Instead we received the physical but positionally challenged Lyubushkin who had less NHL experience than Dahlin.

He is Fitz 2.0. KA wanted another physical D in his organization and overpaid for one, especially when you consider Luke Schenn, a significantly better player on the same team, who went for a similar value. KA is hoping that the terrible positioning he displayed the last two seasons is correctable in our system. Sadly our system hasn't cured Bush or Fitz of similar issues. They don't and Stillman doesn't have the hockey IQ to overcome his poor instincts. I watched many Van games this season watching Schenn to see if the turnaround I saw in TB continued on a mediocre team (it did). What I saw of Stillman made me cringe and his advanced stats match the eye test. I hope and pray DG and co can fix Stillman and turn him into a viable 3rd pairing guy or tough 7 that DG is comfortable throwing out there 18 minutes a night if needed and everyone can say I told you so. However, to me this is KA betting on a long-shot to win the Triple Crown.

If he was excess inventory why give him a contract early? If you had excess inventory why draft another 400 forwards the following draft, when you had a D inventory of 1? If he had traded Bloom for a D prospect I'd have been thrilled. If he had received good value for Bloom, I'd also would have been thrilled, but instead, he got someone who likely will be waived next season, just Fitz was this season. That feels like a move that was completely unnecessary and a waste. I'm also not the only one who believes this. I'm just the one who is most vocal about it.

Yet that is what he just did in the Stillman trade, except there was no short-term gain. Also these problems aren't new. These were the same issue from last season and were addressed with the poor acquisitions of Comire and Lyubushkin (and Clague) and now Stillman. You say he is playing the long developmental game. Ok that's easy on the forwards. We have 1600, but we have only 1 legit D prospect at this point. How does one prospect will 4 holes in your D group?

It feels like 30% of the league has changed teams already. Last season we had 27 trades from 2/14 to 3/20 starting with the Toffoli trade. 18 deals were made in the last week before Deadline Day. We had another 30 deals on Deadline Day. This season we'd already had 32 deals from 1/30 to today starting with Horvat to the NYI, with 22 just in the last few days.

Oh well.

My bad it was @French Collection who brought up Matt Irwin and that is who I originally responded to.

This is where the arguments fail. No one is asking KA to accelerate the plan. All I and others are asking for is for KA to fix obvious holes in the roster. That doesn't mean spending our pipeline, but what it does mean is making smart deals for guys like Marino to shepherd a young D group and gives decent play. DR did this with Teppo and then with Lydman to go with homegrown Kalinin, Campbell, Tallinder and McKee.

The irony of the store's name was not lost on me either.