GAME DAY: San Jose Sharks @ Ottawa Senators - 7:30pm ET - THUR. Dec. 2, 2010

Is Kuba and Foligno for Setoguchi + small piece, a deal that SJ would consider?

Big Ev wrote:I can't wait for next season

Why, what's happening next season?

It would have been awesome to get Couture in that Heatley deal...I mean really, we couldn't get at least one prospect out of that deal? Dung.

and SpezD, we're gonna look so different next season from the top down. They Murrays gone, Clouston gone, a bunch of deadweight gone, and hopefully a high pick who can play right away ala Skinner or Burmistrov or Fowler etc.

oh and THE NEW SCOREBOARD next season!

If I had to choose between a new scoreboard and Spezza, I would choose the scoreboard.

SpezDispenser wrote:

Big Ev wrote:I can't wait for next season

Why, what's happening next season?

We'd be back to .500 right away at 0-0-0. That's what.

oh man, waiking up to this is no surprise. yes this team had overachieved last year, yes we are closer to showing our true colours this year. the story is, we have some aging players that we are asking too much from. Alfie for one looked like he played a full game after the first period, bless his heart. he's just not a top line player anymore.
i just hope murray doesn't trade for anyone over 30, i'm afraid of what he's planning.

but coming back to last night's game, we were outmatched, they are a faster team, with twice the talent up front. it was a slaughter. what can we expect?
i'm not so sure murray should make any moves to help us in the "now". rid us of our coming UFA's and a few other pieces and prepare us for the coming summer FA's

Big Ev wrote:It would have been awesome to get Couture in that Heatley deal...I mean really, we couldn't get at least one prospect out of that deal? Dung.

and SpezD, we're gonna look so different next season from the top down. They Murrays gone, Clouston gone, a bunch of deadweight gone, and hopefully a high pick who can play right away ala Skinner or Burmistrov or Fowler etc.

Were you even around in the Jacques Martin days? He was around about 3 seasons longer than anyone thought. We'll be rid of a few contracts, for sure: Kovalev($5M), Ruutu ($1.3M), Shannon ($0.625M), Campoli ($1.4M -- really? he makes *that* much????), Leclaire ($3.8M). There's also Phillips ($3.5M) but I expect him to be re-signed at around the same price. Maybe move Kuba at the deadline and give his $3.7M to Phillips.

Anyhow, capgeek tells me we'll have 15 players signed and $16.5M to spend. Replace Kuba with Philips and give away Lee, this leaves room for 3 forwards, 2 defensemen and 1 goalie (for 2011 capgeek has Lehner and his $900K already on the roster) with a bit over $17M to spend.

Rundblad and Cowen take the 2 D spots at $2.8M, combined. Elliott resigns at around $1.2M? Two of the forward spots can go to Bingo callups -- for example O'Brien and Butler, for around $2M, combined. That leaves $11 to spend on a stud forward and maybe a couple of spares.

Yep, we *could* look very different next year.

Flo The Action wrote:oh man, waiking up to this is no surprise. yes this team had overachieved last year, yes we are closer to showing our true colours this year. the story is, we have some aging players that we are asking too much from. Alfie for one looked like he played a full game after the first period, bless his heart. he's just not a top line player anymore.
i just hope murray doesn't trade for anyone over 30, i'm afraid of what he's planning.

but coming back to last night's game, we were outmatched, they are a faster team, with twice the talent up front. it was a slaughter. what can we expect?
i'm not so sure murray should make any moves to help us in the "now". rid us of our coming UFA's and a few other pieces and prepare us for the coming summer FA's

We have some young guys, too, but we were consistently beaten to the puck. Heatley hustled out there, for crying out loud. Aren't his knees supposed to be shot? Yes, we were out-matched by a better team, but we were also out played (intensity-wise).

we need a re-tool, starting with the top tool: Murray. Thanks for the depth reload, have a nice life.

wprager wrote:

Flo The Action wrote:oh man, waiking up to this is no surprise. yes this team had overachieved last year, yes we are closer to showing our true colours this year. the story is, we have some aging players that we are asking too much from. Alfie for one looked like he played a full game after the first period, bless his heart. he's just not a top line player anymore.
i just hope murray doesn't trade for anyone over 30, i'm afraid of what he's planning.

but coming back to last night's game, we were outmatched, they are a faster team, with twice the talent up front. it was a slaughter. what can we expect?
i'm not so sure murray should make any moves to help us in the "now". rid us of our coming UFA's and a few other pieces and prepare us for the coming summer FA's

We have some young guys, too, but we were consistently beaten to the puck. Heatley hustled out there, for crying out loud. Aren't his knees supposed to be shot? Yes, we were out-matched by a better team, but we were also out played (intensity-wise).

I think the "game" has changed and the team hasn't (same problem with Calgary btw). We're playing like it's '07 and the game has sped up dramatically since then....

SpezDispenser wrote: Really though, what is Murray waiting for? It's been an hour since the game finished, call up Butler.

You pay players by the day, not the game -- if call ups happen, it'll be closer to Saturday than Thursday.

Michallica wrote:well in one of the most electric atmospheres in sens land, the senators laid a gigantic egg. I don't even know how to describe how brutal the senators were today. Sharks were waaaay faster, and won all the board battles for the pucks. Heatley had some great jump in his game unfortunately.

Seriously does the team have no pride whatsoever? They practically let heatley and the gang run wild over them. They shoulda tried to win this for their coach...for their owner....for their captain....for their GM....yadda yadda. So many reasons to be fired up for this, to be inspire and what the hell did we get? Another 'worst game of the year' performance. Can't wait for the next one.

Yeah, I don't recall signing up for watching one long fart for 2.5 hours last night. My free time is precious!

SDH89 wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:

Let's be fair, Spezza had two of the best wingers in the league for most of his career. Back 5 years ago, or whatever, Heatley was a 50 goal, 100 point man and Alfie was a 40 goal, 100 point man. Cuss, those were the days, let's get us a couple of sick wingers and go to town. And the plus is that Cowen, Rundblad, Karlsson and Wiercioch are all in the system.

True, he had great wingers early on and was quite succesful with them. But now, at 27, he faces a future with a bunch of duds up front. Sure we'll hopefully have an awesome blueline, but they're not necessarily help him score goals.

Crosby gets it done with Depuis and Kunitz on his wings; Malkin gets it done with a bunch of scrubs on his wings; Eric Staal gets it done with guys like Cole, T. Ruutu, and LaRose on his wings; and on and on. Elite talent makes everyone around it better, and finds a way to get it done.

Imagine what any of those centres above would do with options like Alfie, Kovalev, and Mickalek on their wings.

Have they stopped playing for Clouston? Have they done it again? Lifeless out there...

SpezDispenser wrote:

marakh wrote:Notice how after every SJ dump in, it takes 2 or 3 sec to get the puck back to their D on the blue line?
After every Sens dump in, the SJ D either intercept and makes an easy pass for a nice transition, or the SEns get it and do a full minute of cycling that still ends up with a SJ nice transition.

IF that's not a coaching problem I don't know what it is.

It's terrible. So terrible, I don't know what's happening. The Sharks lob the puck into our zone and they're on it and it's to their point men in no time at all. No fairy cycling, just bang, they're on our D (exposing them frankly) and the puck's to the point, then almost as importantly they shoot it on the Cussing net.

We lob it in, lumber into the zone, tie up the D-man, fondle the puck behind the net a bit, give it up for an odd man rush...

Same damn thing all game - and not just this game. It hurts to watch.

No one's on the same page on this one. When you dump, your wingers have to hit the blue line with speed. No one out there right now seems to know if the other guy is going to carry it over the line or dump it -- by the time the figure it out, it's too late -- the puck has been dumped and they're not skating hard in.

From all accounts, isn't Bobby Butler the closest thing we have to a sniper that would be a perfect compliment to Spezza? Spezza's a guy that likes to control the puck and create space... and Butler seems like the kind of guy that thrives on getting open and set for a one timer, like Heatley. If the Sens have any hopes for him becoming a top line sniper, they might as well do it now. Give him that spot permanently even if he does nothing, you keep him there.

Dash wrote:From all accounts, isn't Bobby Butler the closest thing we have to a sniper that would be a perfect compliment to Spezza? Spezza's a guy that likes to control the puck and create space... and Butler seems like the kind of guy that thrives on getting open and set for a one timer, like Heatley. If the Sens have any hopes for him becoming a top line sniper, they might as well do it now. Give him that spot permanently even if he does nothing, you keep him there.

Regin did pretty well in the playoffs being fed by the Spezz Dispenser. So much so that everyone thought this was it. Allow me to remain a bit skeptical about a guy with, what, 2 NHL games and zero points under his belt?

Dash wrote:From all accounts, isn't Bobby Butler the closest thing we have to a sniper that would be a perfect compliment to Spezza? Spezza's a guy that likes to control the puck and create space... and Butler seems like the kind of guy that thrives on getting open and set for a one timer, like Heatley. If the Sens have any hopes for him becoming a top line sniper, they might as well do it now. Give him that spot permanently even if he does nothing, you keep him there.

Come on Dash. You need to develop these kids properly, leave Butler in the AHL for this season and reevaluate at the start of the 2011 campaign.

Simply, if you bring up Butler now and keep him up just because, you are actually promoting him to become a one-dimensional hockey player. Keep him down, learn the game and all aspects of it. He also needs an offseason to start eating and lifting to for peeps sake.