Murray says Spezza will not be moved

I wonder if Murray is subtly saying to Spezza that no one thinks he's worth acquiring?

Murray: "Not one call about Jason so you can put that to bed."

Seems strange to not have a single call... but who knows with Murray. His words are so carefully planned.

"Not one call". Does that mean, not one call that was worth pursuing? Or maybe he got more than one call!!

I used to be a Spezza fan but I have to agree that this guy has regressed. The lazy penalty that he took in the TO game was just icing on the cake. He can blame no one but himself for that one!

Spezza has regressed as a player, which is pretty sad. People who say "he just needs the right coach" or "his defensive play is better than it was when he was 18" is just fooling themselves.

Spezza at this point is just a bad contract.

Neely4Life wrote:Spezza has regressed as a player, which is pretty sad. People who say "he just needs the right coach" or "his defensive play is better than it was when he was 18" is just fooling themselves.

Spezza at this point is just a bad contract.

LOL! He's in his third year as a player and you're saying he's regressed? It's an off-year, that's it.

ElliottRules wrote:"Not one call". Does that mean, not one call that was worth pursuing? Or maybe he got more than one call!!

HA! You never know...

shabbs wrote:

ElliottRules wrote:"Not one call". Does that mean, not one call that was worth pursuing? Or maybe he got more than one call!!

HA! You never know...

this GM language is so cryptic, sheesh, it's frustrating lol.

Oh ya, signs his 49 million dollar deal and he is actually worse on the other side of the puck than last year... takes more lazy dumb penalties than last year. Yup, its an off year.

Spezza isnt a 7 million dollar player and everyone is starting to realize it. He is a career loser on top of everything else, and you are seeing why he has never won a thing in his life or been part of any team that has.

Neely4Life wrote:Spezza at this point is just a bad contract.

Well, I guess we'll see at the end of 2014-15 how it all worked out.

lol, well right there is why its not worth the wait... imagine if we had that for the next 6 years after this with no results... basically over a decade wasted.

Neely4Life wrote:lol, well right there is why its not worth the wait... imagine if we had that for the next 6 years after this with no results... basically over a decade wasted.

Well, Murray's got until this summer to sit and think about it, otherwise after that he'd have to get Spezza to agree to lift his NMC if he wanted to move him for whatever reason.

Neely4Life wrote:lol, well right there is why its not worth the wait... imagine if we had that for the next 6 years after this with no results... basically over a decade wasted.

You may bash me for this but Steve Yzerman didn't win anything at Spezza's age or before either. Some players take longer then others to mature.

Yzerman was also the captain at a very young age and was a leader despite being the complete player he became. Yzerman also played in the 80's where it was offense first an run and gun, he grew up in the NHL playing the game the way everyone else was.

There isnt even a remote thought about Spezza being anything called a leader. Yzerman never had anyone to play with until about 1990 while Spezza has had more tallent around him than a lot of players have in their careers.

I hate people saying Yzerman didnt do this until that. Spezza and Yzerman are no where near the same player. If people want to compare Spezza to anyone, look no further than Pierre Turgeon.

shabbs wrote:

Neely4Life wrote:lol, well right there is why its not worth the wait... imagine if we had that for the next 6 years after this with no results... basically over a decade wasted.

Well, Murray's got until this summer to sit and think about it, otherwise after that he'd have to get Spezza to agree to lift his NMC if he wanted to move him for whatever reason.

then its Wade Redden possibly all over again, I do not want to walk down that road again, we got burned once already

Neely4Life wrote:Yzerman was also the captain at a very young age and was a leader despite being the complete player he became. Yzerman also played in the 80's where it was offense first an run and gun, he grew up in the NHL playing the game the way everyone else was.

There isnt even a remote thought about Spezza being anything called a leader. Yzerman never had anyone to play with until about 1990 while Spezza has had more tallent around him than a lot of players have in their careers.

I hate people saying Yzerman didnt do this until that. Spezza and Yzerman are no where near the same player. If people want to compare Spezza to anyone, look no further than Pierre Turgeon.

Every time Spezza has a bad game it's back to the same old bashing with you. Nobody is perfect and there have been a lot of times this year where Spezza was the best player on the ice. He has improved as much as you want to believe he hasn't.

The problem I see with him is that he tries to do it all on his own sometimes. He tries to make things happen instead of letting the game come to him. Alfie used to do that too.

Neely4Life wrote:

asq2 wrote:What does cap space mean to us?

We're a small market with heavy taxes with a ****ing awful media and a poor team.

There are almost never players the calibre of Spezza on the free agent market, especially none at his age.

We'd also open up a gaping hole at centre that we'd have to fill.

I dont get your love affair with Spezza at all. Do you realize how incomplete, lazy, passionless, and selfish kind of player Spezza is...? Seriously. You see age and tallent.

Lets get Kyle Beach and Downie too, put them all together on one line. Those 2 are younger than Spezza and have all the tools!

We've been over this ad nauseum. We have three threads in the "latest topics" list covering this. You've made your arguments countless times, I've made my arguments countless times, it's pretty obvious neither of us have or are close to changing their opinions.

I'm going to leave it at that. :D

beedub wrote:

asq2 wrote:What does cap space mean to us?

We're a small market with heavy taxes with a ****ing awful media and a poor team.

There are almost never players the calibre of Spezza on the free agent market, especially none at his age.

We'd also open up a gaping hole at centre that we'd have to fill.

I'd have to disagree with you on a couple of things, asq. We are a small market team, with great media coverage, a great fanbase, and a team that is so massively front loaded with long term cap hits that we're gonna tip over in due time.

eliminate one of the big two and you have flexibility. You can invest in defence, goaltending still save money.

Every team is going to have a couple of marquee players. I would like to see ours spread out to encompass defence and goaltending as well as forward

The amount of coverage is good, but IMO the Ottawa media are not. They'll make a big deal out of pretty much anything to fill space.

The thing is, Ottawa has never really been a big player on the market. The big free agents tend to go to the same group of teams.

What big free agent acquisitions have we made? Martin Gerber? Joe Corvo? Jarkko Ruutu?

Yes, Murray's a relatively new GM so that might change, but this team has never been about free agency. And free agency is all about over-paying.

Complain about Spezza's $7 million all you want, because Gomez and Drury are making more than he is and Wade Redden almost the same amount.

You're almost never going to find a player the calibre of Spezza on the free agent market, and if you do you're going to have to drastically overpay to get him to sign here, where the taxes are higher, the weather isn't great, and the team is non-competitive. That means kissing goodbye to guys like Volchenkov, Karlsson, potentially a guy like MPS in the future.

And seriously, would we actually want to sign a top-end guy willing to sign here? Because unless he's locally born, it would show that he's about the money rather than about winning.

Neely4Life wrote:Yzerman was also the captain at a very young age and was a leader despite being the complete player he became. Yzerman also played in the 80's where it was offense first an run and gun, he grew up in the NHL playing the game the way everyone else was.

There isnt even a remote thought about Spezza being anything called a leader. Yzerman never had anyone to play with until about 1990 while Spezza has had more tallent around him than a lot of players have in their careers.

I hate people saying Yzerman didnt do this until that. Spezza and Yzerman are no where near the same player. If people want to compare Spezza to anyone, look no further than Pierre Turgeon.

How about Pavel Datsyuk? People said the Wings would never win with him - and I remember people openly ridiculing the Wings for giving him 6.75 over a long term.