Mezaros to TB for Kuba, Picard and a 1st

cash wrote:

Tukker wrote:

wprager wrote:

Number Twenty Nine wrote:Remember: Murray wants players that want to be here....

Do we know if Kuba and Picard had a choice in the matter? I don't know, Kuba will certainly have better numbers once he comes over here, so it's not a stretch to assume he'll do at least as well as Meszaros did last year. But he's likely gone next year unless. I know nothing about Picard, but I doubt he's got Meswzaros' upside.

So, here's hoping that San Jose really, really tanks this year, and *not* just in the playoffs.

This post combined with your avatar made me lol

:D

cash wrote:
Do not - I repeat: Do NOT trust numbers given by Garrioche and Lee...
We don't have 5M in space, we have 3.5M:
"The Senators currently have a salary-cap hit of $50.2 million. The limit is $56.7 million."
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/sports/story.html?id=e595d1e9-311c-48cb-899a-7fe4c883f468&p=2
That was before adding Kuba's 3M...

Oh, agreed for sure. Garriock is using the figure listed at nhlnumbers.com, and as I've been saying for a while now, it's off by about $2.3 mil. NHLSCAP.com has the right figure, which is $6.49 mil in cap space.

Adding in Kuba's $3 mil plus Picard's $800,00 leaves us with about $2.7 mil in space.

That number's not solid, tho' -- it's factoring in 13 F, 7 D, Schubert, and 2 goalies. At least two, if not three, players will not make the final roster and will have to be moved -- either returned to the minors (Lee, Bass, Winchester, Foligno, and Picard all fall in this category), waived, or traded. At a minimum, that should free up about another $2 mil in cap space.

After this trade, things with the Senators are a little too unstable to predict precisely what our cap space is. But you're right, Garriock doesn't know what he's talking about when he cites that $5 mil figure as our current cap space.

rooneypoo wrote:
Oh, agreed for sure. Garriock is using the figure listed at nhlnumbers.com, and as I've been saying for a while now, it's off by about $2.3 mil. NHLSCAP.com has the right figure, which is $6.49 mil in cap space.

Adding in Kuba's $3 mil plus Picard's $800,00 leaves us with about $2.7 mil in space.

That number's not solid, tho' -- it's factoring in 13 F, 7 D, Schubert, and 2 goalies. At least two, if not three, players will not make the final roster and will have to be moved -- either returned to the minors (Lee, Bass, Winchester, Foligno, and Picard all fall in this category), waived, or traded. At a minimum, that should free up about another $2 mil in cap space.

After this trade, things with the Senators are a little too unstable to predict precisely what our cap space is. But you're right, Garriock doesn't know what he's talking about when he cites that $5 mil figure as our current cap space.

My expectation is for a Nycholat, McAmmond, draft pick package being used to move up in the draft or grab a decent prospect or something. Seems like the right thing for us, but I don't know how right it is for any other team...just hypothesizing (not a word...I know)

rooneypoo wrote:But you're right, Wang doesn't know what he's talking about

You could've just stopped right there

cash wrote:
My expectation is for a Nycholat, McAmmond, draft pick package being used to move up in the draft or grab a decent prospect or something. Seems like the right thing for us, but I don't know how right it is for any other team...just hypothesizing (not a word...I know).

You could've just stopped right there

That seems plausible to me. Certainly I can't imagine paying Nycholat his full salary to play in the minors all year (his deal is 1-way), and it would see that we need to open up at least one roster spot, especially if picking up Picard means we're shifting Schubert to the wing.

Two rookie Ds (in Lee and Picard) on one line up might be too much for Murray and Hartsburg, tho'. Perhaps the plan is to send Picard down for one more year to get him some more seasoning. I don't know, tho' -- he has played almost 100 games at the NHL level already.

rooneypoo wrote:I didn't say he was a downgrade. In fact, I said that, as of right now, in terms of playing level, I'd say they're about even. The only reason I like Mesz better is because he's so much younger and has more potential, and is a little more physical. We lose those intangibles in the trade long-term. This year, however, I'd say their play will be at about the same level.

Some info for you guys about Kuba,

He played on the worst team last year and remember no boyle so he was the only quality d-man on that team besides Paul Ranger. He logged 24:57 time on ice (TOI) per game last year and of that 3:37 was powerplay time Paul Ranger logged less than 2 minutes of PP time per game. Interestingly enough Picard was 3rd in PP time per game behind Boyle and Kuba at 1:42 over games. That was more than Ranger Averaged in 72 games.

Kuba is a horse and he will give the senators a stable d-man to put out there behind Anton and Chris. I like the thought of him and Schubert...they you have your 3rd pair being Smith and Lee....solid

Dawg's Wife wrote:

Some info for you guys about Kuba,

He played on the worst team last year and remember no boyle so he was the only quality d-man on that team besides Paul Ranger. He logged 24:57 time on ice (TOI) per game last year and of that 3:37 was powerplay time Paul Ranger logged less than 2 minutes of PP time per game. Interestingly enough Picard was 3rd in PP time per game behind Boyle and Kuba at 1:42 over games. That was more than Ranger Averaged in 72 games.

Kuba is a horse and he will give the senators a stable d-man to put out there behind Anton and Chris. I like the thought of him and Schubert...they you have your 3rd pair being Smith and Lee....solid

Hmm.... interesting. So you don't think Picard will make this team, eh, and Schubert will play D for sure? What makes you say that?

And what's your sense of Picard?

rooneypoo wrote:

cash wrote:
My expectation is for a Nycholat, McAmmond, draft pick package being used to move up in the draft or grab a decent prospect or something. Seems like the right thing for us, but I don't know how right it is for any other team...just hypothesizing (not a word...I know).

You could've just stopped right there

That seems plausible to me. Certainly I can't imagine paying Nycholat his full salary to play in the minors all year (his deal is 1-way), and it would see that we need to open up at least one roster spot, especially if picking up Picard means we're shifting Schubert to the wing.

Two rookie Ds (in Lee and Picard) on one line up might be too much for Murray and Hartsburg, tho'. Perhaps the plan is to send Picard down for one more year to get him some more seasoning. I don't know, tho' -- he has played almost 100 games at the NHL level already.

I truly believe that Murray doesn't look at Lee as a rookie. Likewise, Picard's time in the league (and his draft class - ooohh what a year 2003 turned out to be) kind of removes that rookie label and puts him in the "inexperienced" category.
I don't personally foresee any significant growing pains with Lee and I think Picard has gone through his.
Still, with the overabundance of quality bottom-6 forwards (and top-6 imo) we don't really have space for Schubert in the forward ranks.
Imo the existence of 2-way contracts for Picard and Bass makes them the most likely deductions from the opening night roster, but I won't rule out the possibility of a trade (especially with Nycholat remaining in Limbo. And btw he will be a serious locker room issue if he is forced back into the AHL)


I think everyone should just take a moment and look at this team and recognize just how incredible a GM Bryan Murray is. I am thankful and exceedingly content to have him as the head of this team's on-ice division.

rooneypoo wrote:

cash wrote:
Do not - I repeat: Do NOT trust numbers given by Garrioche and Lee...
We don't have 5M in space, we have 3.5M:
"The Senators currently have a salary-cap hit of $50.2 million. The limit is $56.7 million."
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/sports/story.html?id=e595d1e9-311c-48cb-899a-7fe4c883f468&p=2
That was before adding Kuba's 3M...

Oh, agreed for sure. Garriock is using the figure listed at nhlnumbers.com, and as I've been saying for a while now, it's off by about $2.3 mil. NHLSCAP.com has the right figure, which is $6.49 mil in cap space.

Adding in Kuba's $3 mil plus Picard's $800,00 leaves us with about $2.7 mil in space.

That number's not solid, tho' -- it's factoring in 13 F, 7 D, Schubert, and 2 goalies. At least two, if not three, players will not make the final roster and will have to be moved -- either returned to the minors (Lee, Bass, Winchester, Foligno, and Picard all fall in this category), waived, or traded. At a minimum, that should free up about another $2 mil in cap space.

After this trade, things with the Senators are a little too unstable to predict precisely what our cap space is. But you're right, Garriock doesn't know what he's talking about when he cites that $5 mil figure as our current cap space.

Remember that NHLSCAP has Nycholat and PIcard whom I think you'll find will both be in the minors. Ottawa won't carry 7 defensemen and if they do, then they will carry 12 forwards and one of bass, winchester, foligno will be in the minors. That's shaving off between 1.1 and 1.3 million from the NHLSCAP number. Add that to the 6.49 and you get around 7.8 million. Pretty close to the 8 million everyone is talking about.

Also some of the contracts listed in the NHLSCAP site has bonuses worked in. The cap has to assume that the full amount of bonuses will be paid every year. So in essense. If a team spent all the way to the cap and paid every one their full salary, they would likely still be under as some players won't hit all their bonus numbers.

With that said, from a cap perspective they can't go over even if 3 million of it is bonus money that won't be met...for example maybe spezza heatley and Gerber all get 1 million dollar bonuses for playing all 82 games. They each miss one game ergo they can't get that bonus. The Senators can't spend that extra money as it's still allocated.

Now this is the way I understand it and the way it was explained to me, however i'm no accountant and from the guys I've talked to only the GM's and accountants for each team and the NHL head office really know the true cap number. We're all guessing.

cash wrote:
I truly believe that Murray doesn't look at Lee as a rookie. Likewise, Picard's time in the league (and his draft class - ooohh what a year 2003 turned out to be) kind of removes that rookie label and puts him in the "inexperienced" category.
I don't personally foresee any significant growing pains with Lee and I think Picard has gone through his.
Still, with the overabundance of quality bottom-6 forwards (and top-6 imo) we don't really have space for Schubert in the forward ranks.
Imo the existence of 2-way contracts for Picard and Bass makes them the most likely deductions from the opening night roster, but I won't rule out the possibility of a trade (especially with Nycholat remaining in Limbo. And btw he will be a serious locker room issue if he is forced back into the AHL)

I think everyone should just take a moment and look at this team and recognize just how incredible a GM Bryan Murray is. I am thankful and exceedingly content to have him as the head of this team's on-ice division.

So you think Picard gets send down for seasoning this year and Schubert takes the last D spot, eh? Interesting.

I don't know what to make of it. I have to admit that I like that we now have 3 serious options for that 6th D spot.

You're right about Murray's genius, tho'. For Mesz, he got an equally capable D in Kuba to replace him immediately, a promising young D in Picard who seems to have some decent upside/potential, and a 1st. Lyle Richardson, aka Spectator, chalks up the inclusion of this 1st rounder as a clear sign of Murray's superior hockey sense vis a vis his that of his trading partners, and a rookie mistake from the new TB owners.

Dawg's Wife wrote:

Remember that NHLSCAP has Nycholat and PIcard whom I think you'll find will both be in the minors. Ottawa won't carry 7 defensemen and if they do, then they will carry 12 forwards and one of bass, winchester, foligno will be in the minors. That's shaving off between 1.1 and 1.3 million from the NHLSCAP number. Add that to the 6.49 and you get around 7.8 million. Pretty close to the 8 million everyone is talking about.

Also some of the contracts listed in the NHLSCAP site has bonuses worked in. The cap has to assume that the full amount of bonuses will be paid every year. So in essense. If a team spent all the way to the cap and paid every one their full salary, they would likely still be under as some players won't hit all their bonus numbers.

With that said, from a cap perspective they can't go over even if 3 million of it is bonus money that won't be met...for example maybe spezza heatley and Gerber all get 1 million dollar bonuses for playing all 82 games. They each miss one game ergo they can't get that bonus. The Senators can't spend that extra money as it's still allocated.

Now this is the way I understand it and the way it was explained to me, however i'm no accountant and from the guys I've talked to only the GM's and accountants for each team and the NHL head office really know the true cap number. We're all guessing.

Umm... I don't get it. I pretty much said exactly what you're saying in the post you include in your comments:

"That number's [i.e., $6.49 mil] not solid, tho' -- it's factoring in 13 F, 7 D, Schubert,
and 2 goalies. At least two, if not three, players will not make the
final roster and will have to be moved -- either returned to the minors
(Lee, Bass, Winchester, Foligno, and Picard all fall in this category),
waived, or traded. At a minimum, that should free up about another $2
mil in cap space."

I appreciate the seconding, tho', even if it's phrased as a correction.

rooneypoo wrote:

cash wrote:
I truly believe that Murray doesn't look at Lee as a rookie. Likewise, Picard's time in the league (and his draft class - ooohh what a year 2003 turned out to be) kind of removes that rookie label and puts him in the "inexperienced" category.
I don't personally foresee any significant growing pains with Lee and I think Picard has gone through his.
Still, with the overabundance of quality bottom-6 forwards (and top-6 imo) we don't really have space for Schubert in the forward ranks.
Imo the existence of 2-way contracts for Picard and Bass makes them the most likely deductions from the opening night roster, but I won't rule out the possibility of a trade (especially with Nycholat remaining in Limbo. And btw he will be a serious locker room issue if he is forced back into the AHL)

I think everyone should just take a moment and look at this team and recognize just how incredible a GM Bryan Murray is. I am thankful and exceedingly content to have him as the head of this team's on-ice division.

So you think Picard gets send down for seasoning this year and Schubert takes the last D spot, eh? Interesting.

I don't know what to make of it. I have to admit that I like that we now have 3 serious options for that 6th D spot.

You're right about Murray's genius, tho'. For Mesz, he got an equally capable D in Kuba to replace him immediately, a promising young D in Picard who seems to have some decent upside/potential, and a 1st. Lyle Richardson, aka Spectator, chalks up the inclusion of this 1st rounder as a clear sign of Murray's superior hockey sense vis a vis his that of his trading partners, and a rookie mistake from the new TB owners.

True story about the trade - I think Murray prefers making trades which are fair and work out for both sides (i.e. what should've been with the Carolina trade) but I think he took them for as much as he could reasonably demand from a position of complete control. He held all the cards, he knew it, and he didn't like the strong-arm tactic used of forcing him into a trade by threatening an offer sheet.

As someone else put it: I would take Kuba and Picard over a 2nd and 3rd round pick, any day.

rooneypoo wrote:

Dawg's Wife wrote:

Some info for you guys about Kuba,

He played on the worst team last year and remember no boyle so he was the only quality d-man on that team besides Paul Ranger. He logged 24:57 time on ice (TOI) per game last year and of that 3:37 was powerplay time Paul Ranger logged less than 2 minutes of PP time per game. Interestingly enough Picard was 3rd in PP time per game behind Boyle and Kuba at 1:42 over games. That was more than Ranger Averaged in 72 games.

Kuba is a horse and he will give the senators a stable d-man to put out there behind Anton and Chris. I like the thought of him and Schubert...they you have your 3rd pair being Smith and Lee....solid

Hmm.... interesting. So you don't think Picard will make this team, eh, and Schubert will play D for sure? What makes you say that?

And what's your sense of Picard?

To be honest I don't know whether he'll make the team or not. Picard is another good puck moving d-man. He has size, but he doesn't use it (similar story to kuba). Looking at the forwards they have to "Bang and Crash" Schubert would be better served down on D, that means Nycholat and or Picard start in the minors.

He was cut from the 05 Team Canada that won gold at the WJHC, but he was invited. He was also an all star in the Q.

One thing I forgot to add...Kuba was the shot blocker on his team at 131. I know that's a far cry from Volchenkov but it's encouraging that with him and Smith we've gained a more than adequate replacement for Mesz and Redden as far as hits and shotblocks go.

rooneypoo wrote:
Umm... I don't get it. I pretty much said exactly what you're saying in the post you include in your comments:

"That number's [i.e., $6.49 mil] not solid, tho' -- it's factoring in 13 F, 7 D, Schubert,
and 2 goalies. At least two, if not three, players will not make the
final roster and will have to be moved -- either returned to the minors
(Lee, Bass, Winchester, Foligno, and Picard all fall in this category),
waived, or traded. At a minimum, that should free up about another $2
mil in cap space."

I appreciate the seconding, tho', even if it's phrased as a correction.

Sorry,

I'll be honest between watching game tape and trying to follow this blog I missed your post. But I was trying to say the same thing. The number on NHLSCAP isn't the number the team will have some the start of the season because players will not be on the team etc.

rooneypoo wrote:So you think Picard gets send down for seasoning this year and Schubert takes the last D spot, eh? Interesting.

I don't know what to make of it. I have to admit that I like that we now have 3 serious options for that 6th D spot.

And yeah: I really do believe our D is now signed, sealed, and soon-to-be delivered.
I wouldn't call it "seasoning" so much as "playing your role"...there simply is no room for him on this team (unless he REALLY blows everyone away at camp)
I expect and want (have wanted since the start of the off-season) Nycholat gone and I predict Picard will be the first D call-up, which is an option I really like having.

The more I look at this trade, the more masterful it appears.

rooneypoo wrote:
I didn't say he was a downgrade. In fact, I said that, as of right now, in terms of playing level, I'd say they're about even. The only reason I like Mesz better is because he's so much younger and has more potential, and is a little more physical. We lose those intangibles in the trade long-term. This year, however, I'd say their play will be at about the same level.

Oops, my mistake. This is what you wrote:

Bottom line: is Kuba from last year a big drop from Meszaros last year?

This is what I read:

Bottom line is Kuba from last year a big drop from Meszaros last year

See, kids, punctuation is *very* important.

Dawg's Wife wrote:

To be honest I don't know whether he'll make the team or not. Picard is another good puck moving d-man. He has size, but he doesn't use it (similar story to kuba). Looking at the forwards they have to "Bang and Crash" Schubert would be better served down on D, that means Nycholat and or Picard start in the minors.

He was cut from the 05 Team Canada that won gold at the WJHC, but he was invited. He was also an all star in the Q.

One thing I forgot to add...Kuba was the shot blocker on his team at 131. I know that's a far cry from Volchenkov but it's encouraging that with him and Smith we've gained a more than adequate replacement for Mesz and Redden as far as hits and shotblocks go.

Thanks for this, that's some very interesting info. I didn't know Kuba played such big minutes and I'm very glad to hear that he did some shot-blocking.

As for Picard, how about this: speaking strictly of their present-day capabilities, who do you think is more talented (just as of right now, remember) between Picard and Nycholat? I mean, if we wanted a puck mover in that 6th spot this year and it came down to those two, do you have any sense of who might be the better player right now?

Dawg's Wife wrote:One thing I forgot to add...Kuba was the shot blocker on his team at 131. I know that's a far cry from Volchenkov but it's encouraging that with him and Smith we've gained a more than adequate replacement for Mesz and Redden as far as hits and shotblocks go.

That is a VERY nice surprise! He and Phillips block essentially the same amount, while Lee and Schubert should be equally committed. Add in the two big guns (or walls ) and we've got Gerber nicely insulated. In the right system, he could really have a big year for us.

wprager wrote:

Oops, my mistake. This is what you wrote:

Bottom line: is Kuba from last year a big drop from Meszaros last year?

This is what I read:

Bottom line is Kuba from last year a big drop from Meszaros last year

See, kids, punctuation is *very* important.

When I teach my first-years grammar, I pull out this newspaper clipping I have of a company that lost millions of dollars over one ambiguously-placed comma in a contract, which allowed lawyers to read an alternate and unintended meaning into the sentence.

It always gets the attention of students, especially the ones in business and engineering.