sundstrom

he'd be my plan d. the two strengths of the devils (at least in numbers) are defense and centers.

zajac-loktionov-josefson-henrique-elias-gionta

all these guys either are centers or can play the position more than adequately.

i saw absolutely nothing from richards this year that shows me he's all that good anymore and last year he was just as much a passenger as anything.

per TG - Frazee has an offer to play in Sweden next year but is waiting to see if the Devils want to resign him. My bet is he's gone.

here's the issue - if you give stephen gionta 23 minutes a game, he's not going to keep that shots/toi up because he's going to get unfavorable matchups where he's never in a position to score.

shots/60 does a better job of qualifying who is a good player and who isn't if you want to work shots into the equation and it shows a much different picture that what you paint - which it should because nobody is arguing that gionta is in the same neighborhood as zajac in terms of offensive ability.

Lou almost NEVER goes after high profile players. we were in the running for Jagr at the deadline, and Lou dropped the ball. ditto for Iginla

dropped the ball? the devils did not have nearly the package that was worth iginla who would've never waived his NTC to come here. the jagr trade would've cost something like gelinas + 2nd - no thank you.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't there a situation where Schneider left Detroit unexpectedly that summer, leading them to having more money and more need for Rafalski?

i think that did have something to do with it but remember how low the cap was at that time - rafalski was one of the top 3 or 4 highest paid dmen in hockey with that deal.