TSN's off-season plan

The writer of this obviously has not watched Bouchard play hockey much. Butch just had his best season in a Wild uniform IMO by staying OFF the ice!

TaLoN wrote:

The writer of this obviously has not watched Bouchard play hockey much. Butch just had his best season in a Wild uniform IMO by staying OFF the ice!

it depends on who's around him, when Rolston was in town Butch did good enough to set him up, IMO butch needs some physical players on his line that can create space for him, his skill set is amazing, he is awfully talented as a player has good vision a decent pass, problem is he does not use his skills rather he stays away from any contact. The best thing for us is to have him play put up decent numbers and trade him.

Also if butch did play he would be able to contribute more to scoring no doubt on that, he needs to be better for us tho, lets hope that if he can swing as a center Lats can use his body enough to generate space and Havlat can be dangerous enough to make butch look decent so we can trade his ass, he doesn't belong on this team.

Unless he really wows in a comeback (unlikely), he will be untradable due to the salary he makes and the length of the deal. Our best hope is that he retires.

TaLoN wrote:

Unless he really wows in a comeback (unlikely), he will be untradable due to the salary he makes and the length of the deal. Our best hope is that he retires.

i can see Bruno Koivu Butch with butch trying to be the shooting player, he might get more then 20gs if mittens can so can he, or centering the 2nd line. its going to be tough, if he was a 3m contract he'd be a good deal fuck you doug.

forthewild wrote:

TaLoN wrote:

Unless he really wows in a comeback (unlikely), he will be untradable due to the salary he makes and the length of the deal. Our best hope is that he retires.

i can see Bruno Koivu Butch with butch trying to be the shooting player, he might get more then 20gs if mittens can so can he, or centering the 2nd line. its going to be tough, if he was a 3m contract he'd be a good deal fuck you doug.

Koivu would be the shooter, much like he was this season.

If Bouchard came back, I'd want him on the 3rd line, centering Kobasew and Clutterbuck. They can make up for his defensive failures, and they aren't afraid to shoot the puck. Can't put him with Hav-Lat because thats an all-floater line. Missthenetagain is just as good on line 1 and is a better player than Brodziak, who'd move down to the 4th line. Of course this plan has us finding a #2 center somehow...

After the last two seasons that Jokinen has had, I have to wonder what his price tag will be.

It's pretty clear that Philly will not be in the market for a tender this summer. All of the pressure going into the play-offs has been proven that Leighton and Boucher can carry that club (cheaply) for next season. It's sad, but that's one more targeted team off of the Harding trade map.

With Dallas extending Lehtonen, there's another. I would say that most, if not all, of the rest of the teams in need of a goalie, will either be looking at a major piece or will make due with one of the veterans ready for pending UFA.

My point? It's a pipe dream to expect a trade involving Harding at this point.

Now, if you want to get really serious, look at the other teams off season game plans. St. Louis and Atlanta in particular will be in the market for a top-4 D-man as well as a cheaper goalie. Package a Harding + Schultz + Sheppard deal for St. Louis and see what happens.

Smoking that same dope; Hell, I would mix things up even further...

*IF* he could be had for 2 million for one year, bring in Jokinen. Stick him on a line between Brunette and Bouchard and move Koivu in between Latendresse and Havlat. Run Kobasew at center (he did that a bit in Boston) for the third line and bump Brodziak down to the fourth line between who-the-fuck-cares.

I have no bloody clue how Fletcher is going to improve this team. Next season is going to be a suck-fest without any upgrades. Dipshit Cullen had us at 5th in the West, remember?

I could see some team offering Jokinen 4 million just on his past success.

This is what we could be looking at.

Bruno Koivu Wellman

Havlat Brods Lats

Cal Butch Kobesew

Who Givesa Shit

I do think that GMCF will move Mittens,Shultz and Harding, maybe not all 3 but at least 2 of 3, Harding should be cheap to Sign, no reason a team can't offer him a 3 year deal with a cap hit of 1.5mil, use him as a backup if he can't cut the mustard as a starter.

Mittens is a solid 3rd liner his deal isn't great but isn't bad,

Shults is overpaid but he is a solid dman, he does his job well and is consistent and doesn't get hurt much, and most likely we'd take some contract back.

We can trade our 1st, as part of a deal, yeah i know its nice to have a pick, but no reason we can't package our 1st to get a proven NHL player.

Anything can happen.

And i have no basis for saying this, but i do think GMCF will make some sizable changes, he isn't happy, he wasn't happy with our results, he wasn't happy with many of the things the organization did, he doesn't want to lose, with that in mind i think he will pull creative ideas out of every hole on his body and get this team in shape to at least get to the playoffs.

He's also made a lot of deflecting comments.

"We can improve from within."
"It's going to be a quiet off-season."
"There's not a lot of help in the free agent pool."

The lines you mixed up are full of fail.

Brunette + Wellman will equal an off-sides call every shift. Wellman also isn't ready.

Butch as a third line center is just silly. If you want to have him there, you might as well pay a buck to someone to hit him in the head again.

Brodziak should most definitely not be centering Lats/Havlat.

If we don't see any changes, it would be better to ask Kobasew to brush up on playing out of position at center. He played some center in 08-09 and last season.

/shrug

I just don't see a rosy future for this club for at least a couple of years. Then again, we were not rebuilding 09-10. We should have been, but we were not.

I think GMCF was trying to keep the expectations in check, if he came out sand said we're going to make huge changes and big splashes this off season people would then expect a lot, this way he can sound modest while evaluating his options, the trade market is his big card this year.

We're full of 3rd and 4th liners, we need top 6 guys, Cullen is a possibility, Martin as well, beyond that not sure who else will make it thats would be worth it.

We have some pieces to trade, and thats where i expect us to make some moves, yeah its a pipe dream to think we can get one of the B's from STL, (berglund,boyes,backes) but there is other guys who can make us better that we might be able to get.

Remember the wild card here is Riser might still get a job

My "pipe-dream", without trying to be too unrealistic

DR gets hired in Tampa(this is a must!), then,
To Tampa:
Bouchard
Sheppard
Boogaard's rights

To Minnesota:
Fedoruk
Adam Hall
Dana Tyrell
conditional 2011 2nd round pick(If James Sheppard or PMB hit 50 points in 2010-11)

-Riser gets his buddies back, we get 2 salary dump fringe NHLers(the fact that both are former Wild players is irrelevant, as people liked Fedoruk and Hall played in Pitt after he left us) on one-ways for one more year who could spot-hold for Almond/Gillies/Wellman if they aren't ready. Tyrell, mainly because we need something coming back and I played with him. Him and Almond went to school together for 2 years, but I don't know if they are friends.

Then,
To Anaheim:
Nick Schultz
9th overall pick

To Minnesota:
Joffrey Lupul
12th overall pick

-I've stated before that I like Austin Watson in the draft, and I think he's there at 12. Lupul gives us a RW for Brunette-Koivu, and IMO we need a sweetener here. I think Saku and Teemu will come back for another year, so the Ducks can afford to deal Joffrey.

Sign Matt Cullen, 3 years ~8m, Jordan Leopold 2 years ~4m, Josh Harding 1 year ~1.25M, Latendresse 1 year ~1.5M(~500k more than his qualifying, so we would be doing him a favor)

Brunette - Koivu - Lupul
Latendresse - Cullen - Havlat
Kobasew - Brodziak/FA - Clutterbuck/Miettinen(depends on the center)
Fedoruk/rookie/FA - Brodziak/Hall/FA/rookie - Miettinen/Clutterbuck

Zanon - Zidlicky
Barker - Burns
Leopold - Scandella/Stoner/Prosser
Stoner/Sifers/Prosser

Backstrom
Harding

Assuming those #s and Scandella making the team, capgeek says we'd have almost 5M still open space on a 56.8M cap, while still needing another forward or 2 on the team(a LTC for Lats would increase him to 3.5-4, as I would compare him to Rene Bourque's deal). Keep the extra space for when theres better FAs/Koivu's extension. Cullen and Leopold are placeholders, not long-term options. I want to see another year from Lats before handing him a deal, even if it means his price goes up. I don't see a trade fit with Harding, and I've said quite a bit that I like him playing 20-30 games, letting Backs know theres someone behind him(Khudobin/FA will not do this).


What I expect:
Brunette - Koivu - Miettinen
Latendresse - FA - Havlat
Kobasew - Brodziak - Clutterbuck
Sheppard/Almond/Gillies/Wellman/Palmer competing with FAs
Bouchard remains on the team(LTIR at start)

Zanon - Zidlicky
Barker - Burns
Schultz - Scandella/Stoner/Prosser
Stoner/Prosser

Backstrom
Harding/FA

Berglund is a floater with potential that he will most likely never reach
Boyes doesn't know how to play defense and is a one trick pony in which his trick didn't work last year
Backes is like Latin Dress with more grit and power but less in the finesse department
Perron is a Bouchard clone but more of a punk. That being said he is cheaper then PMB

Blues could use Harding since Mason is going to look for more cash. Blues management is in a standfast mode, they won't trade any youngsters and Kariya's balloon salary is coming off the books and Tkachuks salary will be off as well. That and the fact that they already have lot's of cap room tells me they are going to go for one of the top 3 big name FA out there.

disagree on Backes, he is grit, tough and what our 2nd line needs, yes he`s not a finesse but do you care he`ll beat the shit out of people and create space for Havlat. out of all those Backes is what i want, he`d be great on our 2nd line