Trade Deadline Talk

[Triumph]

Florida can't risk losing him for nothing - playoffs or not. While he might resign with FL, it would only be if no other team in a better position came up with $6MM+ for him - and there will be about 6 or 7 that would where jay would likely rather be than FL. I put the odds at him in FL next year at about 15%.

They will let everyone know that while they don't want/need to trade him, they will if they get the right offer which must be substantial. should someone provide that deal (and it doesn't even have to be a "knocked over" type deal, i think they'll take it.

they can keep him and should. it's not a hard equation - put on one side the cost of JBo this year, multiplied by the chance of making the playoffs and the revenue that entailed, plus the chance of them winning a round, two rounds, and three rounds and weigh it against any potential trade and what you think that does for your playoff chances next year, plus the lost revenue from basically telling the fans you're not making the playoffs, plus the chances of making the playoffs and how deep you go once you get in. the only way i think the panthers should trade bouwmeester is if they think with that trade their chances of making the playoffs next season are very high. i'm not sure that it would be.

i understand your point but colorado needs major retooling with sakic almost certainly finished and their goaltending in complete shambles. i don't think they make the UFA splash you're suggesting and I think they know it. in fact, their biggest pickup might just be a guy like clemmer w/ a 2 year deal at $1.5MM or so and see if they can get some of this year's magic to rub off.

yeah but i don't see where a 1st, 2nd, and 3rd helps them. i mean obviously it does, but they need bodies there, not just some down the road thing. they can get bodies for hedjuk next year, and the savings is negligible because you're tossing them jay pandolfo.

as for NJ, let's assume the cap stays the same - i assure you it's not going down. if anything, the players will give up full escrow, but it ain't goin down. so that's $9MM or so for 7 guys.

the 7 guys who are there now are:

madden

holik

rupp

shanahan/pandolfo (for this excerise, we'll consider them one guy)

oduya

greene

weekes

i want to keep oduya - lets give him $3MM (remember, many of us agree he's worth more to the devils than any other team - unless someone does something stupid like the Jeff Finger deal).

i wanted to punt madden until his resurgence the last couple of weeks but i'd still rather take the branch rickey thinking and get rid of a guy a year early than late.

marty's backup is making $750k, no matter who he is.

corrente or eckford can take greene's spot

so now there's about $5MM to fillout a 4th line and a 3rd line center. there's plenty of flotsam and jetsam around to do that.

edit: regardless, the idea is stacking the team for THIS year. In my mind, only the Caps could stop the Devils from reaching the Cup finals unless they just get unlucky - we've had this conversation (the luck one) about 100 times but this team is so deep and built for playoff success.

the problem with this isn't 2009 - it's 2010. my expectation is that the salary cap will remain about the same in 2010 as it is now. new jersey has a lot of guys signed to long-term deals who are going to start to decline - rolston, elias, langebrunner, white, salvador, etc. it's a pretty dismal looking squad in 2 years when you degrade their performance, then couple in paul martin's impending UFA demands. the devils already have 25 million dollars committed to 6 players in 2011-12, neither of them named parise, zajac, or martin. the devils are going to need to keep around most of their young guys to have cheap-ish talent on hand for when father time comes calling for elias and zubrus, and i don't see how hejduk greatly increases their chances of success so much that they should give up that much for he and leopold. bearing in mind, of course, that i think this makes little sense for colorado, who don't need to embark on a full-scale rebuild with wolski and stastny in the fold.

Edited February 17, 2009 by Triumph