Which top 6 will Brian Murray target?

If he does. He's have a rough time going after a big ticket player, but we have 6.5 million left in cap space. A new member of ours Dennycrane (along with Rooney recently) have always preached keeping at least 1.5 for emergencies, call-ups and the deadline.

So we have 5 million dollars, minus what Mez is going to make, which is realistically in the 3 million dollar range (give or take a couple of hunded K or so).

Let's say there's a good chance someone gets shipped out of town to accomodate the new player - but we'll only put 500K aside. So now we have 2.5 million dollars to acquire someone.

The list of players available from different teams would have to be based on speculation, but here's a guy I would try to get: PJ Axelsson. Would look good with Fisher and Alfie for sure.

I found guys like Derek Armstong, Mike Knuble, Mike Grier etc. very attractive as well, but with the exception of Armstrong, probably a little harder or more expensive to acquire.

What are your thought?

Dawg has suggested that it is a "sniper", but someone who is not necessarily perceived as one. Also, he suggested that it is a LW. This makes sense - put Vermette between Alfie and the new guy, and leave the dynamic duo up on the other line [I like 1A/1B] with maybe Foligno, or vice versa.

Alternatively, if Fish is willing to play wing (suck it up, man, you're making $4M, now...) then put him on the wing with Spezza/Heater, only you gotta make sure that they learn to skate faster. He'd be awesome beside them then - scare the crap out of the defense with the physical play on forecheck, tons of setups from the Kid, lots of rebounds for both of his linemates, and he'd also be their "defensive conscience", until Hartsburgh can beat on them enough to get them to play to their talent.

So, to address the question, I'd say we're looking for a LW with somewhere around 20-25 goals (suggests potential for 35-40 i.e. "a sniper"), making around $1.5-2.5. Knowing the way Murray works, I'd suspect minimum 2-3 years left on the contract, since it sounds like the player is somewhat underrated.

Can we narrow it further?

Acrobat wrote:Dawg has suggested that it is a "sniper", but someone who is not necessarily perceived as one. Also, he suggested that it is a LW. This makes sense - put Vermette between Alfie and the new guy, and leave the dynamic duo up on the other line [I like 1A/1B] with maybe Foligno, or vice versa.

Alternatively, if Fish is willing to play wing (suck it up, man, you're making $4M, now...) then put him on the wing with Spezza/Heater, only you gotta make sure that they learn to skate faster. He'd be awesome beside them then - scare the crap out of the defense with the physical play on forecheck, tons of setups from the Kid, lots of rebounds for both of his linemates, and he'd also be their "defensive conscience", until Hartsburgh can beat on them enough to get them to play to their talent.

So, to address the question, I'd say we're looking for a LW with somewhere around 20-25 goals (suggests potential for 35-40 i.e. "a sniper"), making around $1.5-2.5. Knowing the way Murray works, I'd suspect minimum 2-3 years left on the contract, since it sounds like the player is somewhat underrated.

Can we narrow it further?

Please Fisher...please move to the wing. I know he'd be like Morrow, picking up the trash, getting in the goalie's face, hard to move. He'd perfectly compliment Spezza and Fisher. So frustrating that we need to acquire another player in the exact same mold as Fisher, but can play LW. Boo.

Kariya could be that guy, but his salary makes it almost impossible. Same with Tkachuk, he could be amazing on the left side of Spezza and Heatley. But his contract is big as well - and apparently his attitude isn't the greatest.

Murray likes the Rob Niedermayers of the NHL. The pluggers who can score from time to time, is there someone like that out there?

So I'm going through salaries and stats...

Axelson fits perfectly...but there are more...

Andrei Kastsitsyn (Montreal, $3.25M x 3yrs to RFA) - won't happen
Vyacheslav Kozlov (Atlanta, $3.67M x 2yrs to UFA) - will drive away the four remaining fans...and Kovalchuk also

Sounds like an interesting assignment. Here is a link for last season's goal leaders among left wingers:

http://www.nhl.com/nhlstats/app?formids=PropertySelection%2CPropertySelection_0%2CPropertySelection_1%2CPropertySelection_2%2CPropertySelection_3%2CPropertySelection_4%2CPropertySelection_5%2CSubmit&component=reportBuilder.%24SimpleForm&page=Home&service=direct&submitmode=&submitname=&PropertySelection=0&PropertySelection_0=0&PropertySelection_1=0&PropertySelection_2=2&PropertySelection_3=0&PropertySelection_4=0&PropertySelection_5=6&Submit=Get+Stats

I'll see if I have any suggestions after taking a look. If someone has a link that would also have a salary field that would be even better

Acrobat wrote:So I'm going through salaries and stats...

Axelson fits perfectly...but there are more...

Who did you find that interests you?

beerandsens wrote:Sounds like an interesting assignment. Here is a link for last season's goal leaders among left wingers:

Very crafty. :D

Kozlov from Atlanta would be amazing, Pyatt would be good too, Jason Blake is too big a risk, but I would guarantee he would fly with Fisher and Alfie.

This is very difficult. Can Nagy not rebound from his horrible, injury riddled season? And would he sign for 1 mil?

Ok - let's do this a different way...
First I'll list all the LW that scored 25 down to 15 goals last year. Then we can eliminate those that obviously won't move,those that just signed, and those with salaries out of range...

Kristian Huselius
Ray Whitney
Markus Naslund
Cory Stillman
Milan Michalek
Scott Hartnell
Alexander Frolov
Dustin Penner
Eric Cole
David Booth
Chris Kunitz ($3.725x4ys then UFA) - probably too expensive
Patrick Elias
Tomas Holmstrom
Andrew Brunette
Daniel Paille
Alex Tanguay
Wojtek Wolski
Alexei Ponikarovsky
Vyacheslav Kozlov
Paul Kariya
Jussi Jokinen
Taylor Pyatt
Ruslan Fedotenko
Jason Blake
Alex Steen
Sean Avery
Curtis Glencross

EDIT: PJ Axelsson had only 13 goals... are we setting the parameters too tight?

Acrobat wrote:Dawg has suggested that it is a "sniper", but someone who is not necessarily perceived as one. Also, he suggested that it is a LW. This makes sense - put Vermette between Alfie and the new guy, and leave the dynamic duo up on the other line [I like 1A/1B] with maybe Foligno, or vice versa.

Alternatively, if Fish is willing to play wing (suck it up, man, you're making $4M, now...) then put him on the wing with Spezza/Heater, only you gotta make sure that they learn to skate faster. He'd be awesome beside them then - scare the crap out of the defense with the physical play on forecheck, tons of setups from the Kid, lots of rebounds for both of his linemates, and he'd also be their "defensive conscience", until Hartsburgh can beat on them enough to get them to play to their talent.

So, to address the question, I'd say we're looking for a LW with somewhere around 20-25 goals (suggests potential for 35-40 i.e. "a sniper"), making around $1.5-2.5. Knowing the way Murray works, I'd suspect minimum 2-3 years left on the contract, since it sounds like the player is somewhat underrated.

Can we narrow it further?

I have a feeling I know exactly who it is. He's still quite young, fairly cheap, not a particularly big time goal scorer (but now that Dawg mentions it, it is amazing how he manages to find spots to put the puck in the back of the net), and hasn't really become a top 6 fixture yet, although it would seem that he is oozing with offensive skill to even potentially be a top line left winger for years to come. Very, very, very interesting if Murray can snag this kid, although I have no idea what the asking price is.

Well it's hard for me to pick anyone from looking at the list, there are at least a dozen you can consider. In my mind none of them seem to be a clear favorite, except I'm pretty sure we won't be lucky enough to get a young RFA kind of guy. I did realize that the Hagman deal could be a little under the radar. If he continues to put up a decent amount of points in Toronto he could be well worth the money. Of course, this is not in the same universe as the Vermette deal. B. Murray is amazing.

Fun...I'm in.


Kristian Huselius (out)
Ray Whitney (out)
Markus Naslund (out)
Cory Stillman (out)
Milan Michalek (out)
Scott Hartnell (out)
Alexander Frolov (out, this is getting depressing)
Dustin Penner (out)
Eric Cole (out)
David Booth (out)
Chris Kunitz (out)
Patrick Elias (out)
Tomas Holmstrom (out)
Andrew Brunette (out)
Daniel Paille (out)
Alex Tanguay (out)
Wojtek Wolski (out)
Alexei Ponikarovsky (barf)
Vyacheslav Kozlov (3.7, 2 more years...it would take some fancy footwork)
Paul Kariya (out)
Jussi Jokinen (me wants...)
Taylor Pyatt (want)
Ruslan Fedotenko (blah?)
Jason Blake (out)
Alex Steen (possible?)
Sean Avery (out)
Curtis Glencross (out)

So Kozlov, J.Jokinen, Pyatt, Steen?

PKC wrote:
I have a feeling I know exactly who it is. He's still quite young, fairly cheap, not a particularly big time goal scorer (but now that Dawg mentions it, it is amazing how he manages to find spots to put the puck in the back of the net), and hasn't really become a top 6 fixture yet, although it would seem that he is oozing with offensive skill to even potentially be a top line left winger for years to come. Very, very, very interesting if Murray can snag this kid, although I have no idea what the asking price is.

Boo hoo hoo, c'mon give us a hint.

What about Ryan Clowe?

504Heater wrote:

PKC wrote:
I have a feeling I know exactly who it is. He's still quite young, fairly cheap, not a particularly big time goal scorer (but now that Dawg mentions it, it is amazing how he manages to find spots to put the puck in the back of the net), and hasn't really become a top 6 fixture yet, although it would seem that he is oozing with offensive skill to even potentially be a top line left winger for years to come. Very, very, very interesting if Murray can snag this kid, although I have no idea what the asking price is.

Boo hoo hoo, c'mon give us a hint.

Ok. He was a 6th round draft pick.