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Dammit Latendresse appears to be a pending UFA I guess he hit targets to qualify. That sucks

LeKing wrote:I wish I could find those 4 year old threads when I used to defend Bryan Murray night and day while he was getting bashed left and right. Or maybe it was during the hockeybuzz days?

I used to defend him on HFB, the geniuses there wanted him replaced by Pierre McGuire

NEELY wrote:

Flo The Action wrote:

NEELY wrote:Latendresse isn't getting the love he should be right now. He's an extremely smart player and while he isn't the fastest guy on the planet he gets to where he needs to be.

Pretty obvious how Murray and MacLean are building the team at this point. They play guys who know there job and don't do anything else besides that. "This is why you're here, do it and we'll win". It's worked.

plus barring he goes mad and scores a goal a game he's not shown he can stay healthy so i doubt his salary goes up by much next year.

His problems were not concussions, they were migrains so saying he won't stay healthy is totally inaccurate. Yah, he could get injured but it won't be because of an off and on head injury.

I swear you said before "It's a concussion, lol" or something to that effect when they were calling it other things.

Yah, the whiplash thing is usually code for concussion. Either way, they didn't even know until 2 weeks ago what it was so I went based on history.

Let me guess, this is me flip flopping again right or am I not allowed to change my opinion or view based on new information or details?

LeKing wrote:I wish I could find those 4 year old threads when I used to defend Bryan Murray night and day while he was getting bashed left and right. Or maybe it was during the hockeybuzz days?

Yaaaah, I remember those. I used to get bashed for a lot of things. Defending Bryan Murray, calling out the druggies, saying Karlsson was better and will be better than Hedman, etc, etc.

NEELY wrote:Yah, the whiplash thing is usually code for concussion. Either way, they didn't even know until 2 weeks ago what it was so I went based on history.

Let me guess, this is me flip flopping again right or am I not allowed to change my opinion or view based on new information or details?

Not in this case.

Don't give me that Dung guys, come on. I was and still am a massive Murray supporter and there were times where I thought he was done for sure - and anyone who says differently is full of Dung.

I remember when we were bottoming out a couple of years ago wondering how Melnyk possibly had the patience to stick with Murray - again, a guy I think the world of as a hockey guy, a GM and a builder.

Not sure what you mean but even during the Hartsburg days I was defending him and my arguments were that he couldn't make trades because everyone was underperforming so we'd lose value, so it's best to just wait for draft picks to develop. Here we are 5 years later and the 2008 draft has pretty much developed a superstar, a 3rd line center and another top 4D. The following draft has produced the best young goalie in the NHL, a future deadly sniper and another top 4D.
His free agents signings were also dreadful but it was because we had no one in the pipeline.
I think we can all see throughout the league that free agents rarely make any difference and are bad building blocks unless they join an already very good team.

I've never even once suggested Murray should have been replaced

LeKing wrote:Not sure what you mean but even during the Hartsburg days I was defending him and my arguments were that he couldn't make trades because everyone was underperforming so we'd lose value, so it's best to just wait for draft picks to develop. Here we are 5 years later and the 2008 draft has pretty much developed a superstar, a 3rd line center and another top 4D. The following draft has produced the best young goalie in the NHL, a future deadly sniper and another top 4D.
His free agents signings were also dreadful but it was because we had no one in the pipeline.
I think we can all see throughout the league that free agents rarely make any difference and are bad building blocks unless they join an already very good team.

I've never even once suggested Murray should have been replaced

Same as well, never thought anything about Murray other than the guys he paid for are total bunghole and it was out of his control.

Then you're a better fan than all of us, because I'd guarantee - even the biggest supporters of Murray were doubting he'd survive Hartsburg and Clouston.

NEELY wrote:

LeKing wrote:Not sure what you mean but even during the Hartsburg days I was defending him and my arguments were that he couldn't make trades because everyone was underperforming so we'd lose value, so it's best to just wait for draft picks to develop. Here we are 5 years later and the 2008 draft has pretty much developed a superstar, a 3rd line center and another top 4D. The following draft has produced the best young goalie in the NHL, a future deadly sniper and another top 4D.
His free agents signings were also dreadful but it was because we had no one in the pipeline.
I think we can all see throughout the league that free agents rarely make any difference and are bad building blocks unless they join an already very good team.

I've never even once suggested Murray should have been replaced

Same as well, never thought anything about Murray other than the guys he paid for are total bunghole and it was out of his control.

Yeah, but that's a huge part of it. Again, love Murray and what he's done for this organization is nothing short of Grade A miraculous, but he got a couple of MASSIVE mulligans.

My right click button isn't working - which is annoying as Dung, but LeBrun said that he thinks Dan Boyle and Martin Havlat are available. The cost is likely a 1st and a decent prospect - although clearly that's a guess.

I want Boyle SO bad.

SpezDispenser wrote:Then you're a better fan than all of us, because I'd guarantee - even the biggest supporters of Murray were doubting he'd survive Hartsburg and Clouston.

Nope, just some people don't all jump off the cliff or throw people under the bus. My only critique of Murray were his coaching decisions but that's obviously been corrected.

Anyone who had any kind of pulse on the team knew exactly what the problem was... the old guard stopped caring about hockey as the #1 reason they were in Ottawa. Be it drugs, wives, or injuries, the team had to be blown up and it was. Add in the fact Murray is a builder and nothing less and some people were of the belief Murray was the person to take them through it.

The Dung show wasn't on Murray, it was on Muckler's years of poor drafting, poor trades, and poor signings.

NEELY wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:Then you're a better fan than all of us, because I'd guarantee - even the biggest supporters of Murray were doubting he'd survive Hartsburg and Clouston.

Nope, just some people don't all jump off the cliff or throw people under the bus. My only critique of Murray were his coaching decisions but that's obviously been corrected.

Anyone who had any kind of pulse on the team knew exactly what the problem was... the old guard stopped caring about hockey as the #1 reason they were in Ottawa. Be it drugs, wives, or injuries, the team had to be blown up and it was. Add in the fact Murray is a builder and nothing less and some people were of the belief Murray was the person to take them through it.

The Dung show wasn't on Murray, it was on Muckler's years of poor drafting, poor trades, and poor signings.

It still happened under Murray's watch, whether or not Muckler was responsible, Murray didn't do much to stop the bleeding for a while. Randy Robitaille, Alex Picard - these are scrubs, he could have acquired better players through the waiver wire and didn't. Guys like Fisher were kept a year too long, although we still got good value. The essence of the team was flawed and all Murray had to do was tell Melnyk that it was time to take the core apart and start working on it anew. Lucky he survived long enough to carry that through IMO.

Again though, what he's done is amazing, I can't stress that enough and I'm happy as a clam that he wasn't canned.

SpezDispenser wrote:

NEELY wrote:

SpezDispenser wrote:Then you're a better fan than all of us, because I'd guarantee - even the biggest supporters of Murray were doubting he'd survive Hartsburg and Clouston.

Nope, just some people don't all jump off the cliff or throw people under the bus. My only critique of Murray were his coaching decisions but that's obviously been corrected.

Anyone who had any kind of pulse on the team knew exactly what the problem was... the old guard stopped caring about hockey as the #1 reason they were in Ottawa. Be it drugs, wives, or injuries, the team had to be blown up and it was. Add in the fact Murray is a builder and nothing less and some people were of the belief Murray was the person to take them through it.

The Dung show wasn't on Murray, it was on Muckler's years of poor drafting, poor trades, and poor signings.

It still happened under Murray's watch, whether or not Muckler was responsible, Murray didn't do much to stop the bleeding for a while. Randy Robitaille, Alex Picard - these are scrubs, he could have acquired better players through the waiver wire and didn't. Guys like Fisher were kept a year too long, although we still got good value. The essence of the team was flawed and all Murray had to do was tell Melnyk that it was time to take the core apart and start working on it anew. Lucky he survived long enough to carry that through IMO.

Again though, what he's done is amazing, I can't stress that enough and I'm happy as a clam that he wasn't canned.

WTF? They made the playoffs the year before. The time to trade him was during a playoff run? It all came apart at once basically and Murray corrected that... he did what he could with the hand he was dealt. The only thing he had control over were the coaches and that was it.

Saying Murray was at fault because of the total lack of depth in the organization and the lack of character in that room is BS. Like Gonchar this year, like Kuba the year before, Murray didn't get stupid overnight. People have such knee jerk reactions it's unbelievable.

NEELY wrote:
WTF? They made the playoffs the year before. The time to trade him was during a playoff run? It all came apart at once basically and Murray corrected that... he did what he could with the hand he was dealt. The only thing he had control over were the coaches and that was it.

Saying Murray was at fault because of the total lack of depth in the organization and the lack of character in that room is BS. Like Gonchar this year, like Kuba the year before, Murray didn't get stupid overnight. People have such knee jerk reactions it's unbelievable.

The wheels were coming off a long time before that. We got decimated in the playoffs and basically only got there because of top heavy talent. No organizational depth at all.

Murray did this retool/rebuild right, but for the millionth time he was on the hook for poor coaching decisions and odd, cheap signings that were literally scraping the bottom of the barrel.

Furthermore, no one was mad at Murray for Kuba or Gonchar - not around here anyway, they were mad that Kuba and Gonchar appeared to be DONE. And if that was the case, we were horrified that we were about to get stuck with them. You said it, I said it, everyone who watched the game of hockey said it: Is Gonchar done? He looked like he was skating in mud and basically didn't give a Dung.

This is what I meant, it's revisionist history right now.

I think some of us said that Gonchar and Kuba didn't become garbage after night and they didn't. The coaching decisions were poor and I think everyone agreed that was on Murray, they were his guys but other than that... not so much.

Anyway, I guess the bottom line is we're lucky that he kept his job, because he's been nothing short of amazing. A true GM of the year candidate.