General Hockey Talk - Injuries, signings, factoids + other news from around the league

NEELY wrote:Gardiner is a solid, solid player. Really nice trade for Burke there.

Kadri is looking more and more like a total bust though. Can't stand him. Colbourn looks lost as well.

Frattin may beat Kadri out of a spot at this rate... how funny would that be?

Frattin has looked fantastic. They keep pumping Kadri's tires saying he is doing all the right things but fact of the matter is he is turning over the puck at the blueline, not creating any offense, and defensivly he has been "meh".

This is the kid they thought would be the future number 1 center. At this rate he will be lucky if he is an NHL center.

NY Times reporting that the Rags may decide to waive Sean Avery, due to their depth at centre.

http://slapshot.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/metro-pucks-report-staal-streit-avery-josefson-parise-nabokov/?partner=rss&emc=rss

shabbs wrote:

NEELY wrote:Gardiner is a solid, solid player. Really nice trade for Burke there.

Kadri is looking more and more like a total bust though. Can't stand him. Colbourn looks lost as well.

Frattin may beat Kadri out of a spot at this rate... how funny would that be?

We are very lucky Burke took Kadri.

tim1_2 wrote:

shabbs wrote:

NEELY wrote:Gardiner is a solid, solid player. Really nice trade for Burke there.

Kadri is looking more and more like a total bust though. Can't stand him. Colbourn looks lost as well.

Frattin may beat Kadri out of a spot at this rate... how funny would that be?

We are very lucky Burke took Kadri.

Amen.

Meh, I doubt The Sens put the kind of pressure on Kadri, Toronto has. I didn't like him at the time of the draft either but coming into Ottawa would have been much easier playing behind Spezza.

Da lil Guy wrote:NY Times reporting that the Rags may decide to waive Sean Avery, due to their forward depth at centre.

http://slapshot.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/09/26/metro-pucks-report-staal-streit-avery-josefson-parise-nabokov/?partner=rss&emc=rss

Avery is a winger, and the article gets it right.

Have to wonder what's next for this guy. Avery was a very good, effective player in his prime -- i.e., in NY before Tortorella.

If he gets waived and then put on re-entry waivers, can someone claim him on (re-) re-entry waivers, and how would that work? Would they get him for 1/4th of his actual pay, with DAL stuck with the other 1/2 and NYR stuck with 1/4? That would be epic.

NEELY wrote:Meh, I doubt The Sens put the kind of pressure on Kadri, Toronto has. I didn't like him at the time of the draft either but coming into Ottawa would have been much easier playing behind Spezza.

I bet it would've turned out pretty much the same. There would still be tons of pressure on Kadri here. Have you seen how the media and some fans treat the players here? It's like they are slaves whose sole purpose in life is to amuse us and perform on the ice.

Sens wouldn't hang their future number 1 center hopes on a guy that couldn't possibly be a number 1 center. That's the point.

Expectations would be realistic in Ottawa, they are insane in Toronto. You can see right now there are no issue's sending guys like Da Costa or Zibanejad back to The SEL or AHL, Toronto they would expect those guys to carry the load for the entire city. Hell, Bozak was supposed to be the number 1 center there too.

tim1_2 wrote:
We are very lucky Burke took Kadri.

Oh man, huge +1 on that. I said it before, imagine Cowen and Schenn for the Leafs?

Expectations here would only be tempered because we have a #1 C in Spezza. Toronto has no #1 C. Expectations are just a form of pressure from the outside world. Kadri's development is up to Kadri and Kadri alone. If he isn't mentally or physically tough enough to handle things in TO, he wouldn't hack it here, either.

That being said, I think there is still time for him to turn into a good NHLer, but I'm glad we didn't draft him.

The reality of Bozak being a #3 C is starting to settle in here in Toronto.

SpezDispenser wrote:

tim1_2 wrote:
We are very lucky Burke took Kadri.

Oh man, huge +1 on that. I said it before, imagine Cowen and Schenn for the Leafs?

I still don't understand how Leaf fans think Murray didn't play Burke like a fiddle (or more accurately, let Burke play himself). It's amazing that they think Burke stole Kadri from us. I personally had Kadri well outside the top-10 and Imo it was a huge reach to take him at 7.

tim1_2 wrote:Expectations here would only be tempered because we have a #1 C in Spezza. Toronto has no #1 C. Expectations are just a form of pressure from the outside world. Kadri's development is up to Kadri and Kadri alone. If he isn't mentally or physically tough enough to handle things in TO, he wouldn't hack it here, either.

That being said, I think there is still time for him to turn into a good NHLer, but I'm glad we didn't draft him.

It was a reach to draft him at 7, but he's still only 21 and just two years post-draft. He was pretty dominant in his post draft season (huge point totals that don't necessarily reflect his actual impact. Imo he had less impact than the stats indicate) and put up a ppg pace in the AHL in his CHL overage year. Pretty decent showing so far.

Point producers who play with an edge are usually pretty valuable cogs.

That being said, yeah I'm glad we got that other guy

I don't think we should be too revisionist here - Murray clearly wanted Kadri, and Burke took him. It was plain to see on TV, and I don't think we can say it was all part of some machievellian scheme on Murray's part.

At the time, I recall being very upset with Murray because he allowed himself to get Wing Dang Doodle (can't wait to see what the filter does with that) on national television by his provincial rival.

What you can't fault Murray for, though, is not pressing the issue if he knew he was going to get a good player regardless - and in hindsight, probably the better player.

EDIT: Filter did not disappoint.

Da lil Guy wrote:I don't think we should be too revisionist here - Murray clearly wanted Kadri, and Burke took him. It was plain to see on TV, and I don't think we can say it was all part of some machievellian scheme on Murray's part.

At the time, I recall being very upset with Murray because he allowed himself to get Wing Dang Doodle (can't wait to see what the filter does with that) on national television by his provincial rival.

What you can't fault Murray for, though, is not pressing the issue if he knew he was going to get a good player regardless - and in hindsight, probably the better player.

EDIT: Filter did not disappoint.

I still don't know how people see it like that. BM approached Burke, inquiring about the pick; Burke, blusteringly, responds, we're keeping it and picking Kadri, then walks away. He didn't even listen to any offer (isn't that the first rule of GMing?) and in fact gave away information for free.

BM's silence suggests to me not some nutless submission to the almighty Burke, but rather, 'huh, thanks for the free info, don't need that pick now that I know you aren't picking my guy.'

Cowen was a top 4 or 5 pick before the injury. It's equally as plausible that BM was afraid Burke was going to grab him and not Kadri, who was not on most people's top 10.

rooneypoo wrote:

Da lil Guy wrote:I don't think we should be too revisionist here - Murray clearly wanted Kadri, and Burke took him. It was plain to see on TV, and I don't think we can say it was all part of some machievellian scheme on Murray's part.

At the time, I recall being very upset with Murray because he allowed himself to get Wing Dang Doodle (can't wait to see what the filter does with that) on national television by his provincial rival.

What you can't fault Murray for, though, is not pressing the issue if he knew he was going to get a good player regardless - and in hindsight, probably the better player.

EDIT: Filter did not disappoint.

I still don't know how people see it like that. BM approached Burke, inquiring about the pick; Burke, blusteringly, responds, we're keeping it and picking Kadri, then walks away. He didn't even listen to any offer (isn't that the first rule of GMing?) and in fact gave away information for free.

BM's silence suggests to me not some nutless submission to the almighty Burke, but rather, 'huh, thanks for the free info, don't need that pick now that I know you aren't picking my guy.'

Cowen was a top 4 or 5 pick before the injury. It's equally as plausible that BM was afraid Burke was going to grab him and not Kadri, who was not on most people's top 10.

Murray wasn't silent. He said he wanted Kadri too.

Da lil Guy wrote:I don't think we should be too revisionist here - Murray clearly wanted Kadri, and Burke took him. It was plain to see on TV, and I don't think we can say it was all part of some machievellian scheme on Murray's part.

At the time, I recall being very upset with Murray because he allowed himself to get Wing Dang Doodle (can't wait to see what the filter does with that) on national television by his provincial rival.

What you can't fault Murray for, though, is not pressing the issue if he knew he was going to get a good player regardless - and in hindsight, probably the better player.

EDIT: Filter did not disappoint.

I don't think that it was "plain to see" that Murray wanted Kadri. When Burke asks if BM wants Kadri, Murray hesitates a bit. He may have wanted to draft NK, but it's also possible that the little pause indicated that wheels were turning in Murray's mind. Regardless, the end result is that we got Cowen, who looks like he'll be a beast. Kadri will probably be a very good second line center, and maybe even a good first liner (though I think it's a safer projection to have him succeeding on the 2nd). We'll never know whether Murray was being honest with Burke at the draft table or not. Who cares, though. We have Cowen. I couldn't be happier with that result.

It seems that there's a bit of a lack of agreement about what happened. Here's the clip: