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Post by Carson! on Sept 12, 2009 13:46:47 GMT -5
At 2:30 today, Dany Heatley was traded to the San Jose Sharks for Jonathan Cheechoo, Milan Michalek and a 2nd round pick.
my response: **** you Murray!!! **** you **** you **** you!!! **** you and your stupid face!
This trade sucks. I take back everything I have ever said in defense of Brian Murray. You don't just give away star players you idiot.
We better sign Kessel, but I doubt there's enough cap space.
God I hate this trade!
Edit: There isn't any more cap space, that trade saved 0.2mil in cap space for the Sens! What where you thinking Murray!?
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Post by V-HAB on Sept 12, 2009 18:01:01 GMT -5
I'm going to hypothesize a lot here, so bear with me and tell me what you think about my ideas.
I think Murray has wanted Michalek all along from the Sharks. What I personally believe he didn't want was Cheechoo, but wanted Ehrhoff. That trade didn't work under the cap though, so I think that's when the rumors of three-way trades involving the Canadiens came up.
I believe that those rumors were true to a certain extent, that being that there never were talks between the three teams all together. I think Montreal may have had interest in Cheechoo at some point in time, which would have made a deal of Michalek + Ehrhoff to Ottawa possible.
I guess either San Jose were asking for too much for Cheechoo, or Montreal changed their mind because those rumors died down and it probably put San Jose and Ottawa at a deadlock in negotiations, seeing as San Jose had to get rid of Cheechoo to make this deal work and Ottawa didn't want him.
I'm guessing nobody wanted him, because Ehrhoff ended up being San Jose's cap dump. To San Jose, it probably made no difference because in their minds they were going to lose all of Michalek, Cheechoo and Ehrhoff, no matter who was the cap dump or the Heatley trade bait.
So Wilson goes "You want Michalek? You have to take Cheechoo or this can not work." Murray is stuck and has no other option at this point, being so close to training camp and all. Done deal.
What do you guys think? I tried to piece together all the stories for this summer and I think it makes sense. The only thing I didn't talk about was the three-way trade that included LA, but I think it's a simple one. Either it was complete and total BS, or Marleau used his NTC to veto the trade.
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Post by Carson! on Sept 12, 2009 18:14:16 GMT -5
You're probably right. But Here's what Murray should have done:
DW: "You want Michalek? You have to take Cheechoo or this will not work"
BM: "Ok, but instead of a second round pick, you give us your 1st rounders for the next two drafts. 1 because the value doesn't add up, 2 because we have to take Cheechoo."
I would be happy in that situation. I don't understand how we lost a 5th round and only gained a 2nd round pick on top of that. Just a terrible trade.
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Post by Carson! on Sept 12, 2009 18:59:13 GMT -5
Or this:
DW: "You want Michalek? You have to take Cheechoo or this will not work"
BM: Ok, but put in Clowe and we'll add Kelly, and instead of a 2nd make it a 1st round pick.
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Post by Mr. Hockey on Sept 12, 2009 20:08:07 GMT -5
at the end of the day, its a good traded. If I was a sens fan i wouldn't want Danny to wear the sens jersey. the guy was a *** to the team. it the best thing that could happen too ottawa. plus they were not going to get want they wanted. Danny is a cancer in the dressing room.
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Post by V-HAB on Sept 12, 2009 20:27:45 GMT -5
Everybody besides Sens fans knew that Ottawa would not get fair value for Heatley. You just can't trade a player you have to trade and get a great return. Every GM in the league knew that Heatley was going to be traded this summer, even if Murray bluffed that he would just keep him if he got no good offers. Be honest, it was pretty obvious that they weren't gonna keep him.
Heatley made his own value drop by requesting to be traded over something so stupid, and handcuffing the Senators like that. Any team taking on Heatley now knows that it is a risk, as he has now forced two teams to trade him.
Look on the bright side though, I don't think Ottawa has EVER had this much offensive depth.
Michalek - Spezza - Kovalev
Cheechoo - Fisher - Alfredsson
That's a really nice top 6 any way you look at it. Michalek is really good defensively, as is Alfredsson, and they both have a lot of speed, Kovalev and Cheechoo can snipe, Fisher can grind, Spezza can create a lot of turnovers... That's a nice mix of skills.
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Post by Carson! on Sept 12, 2009 22:49:47 GMT -5
You're right, the offensive depth is amazing, not only the top 6 is good, the bottom 6 is pretty stacked also. Don't forget guys like Foligno and Shannon, who excelled under Clouston. With Heatley gone, it might motivate Spezza to score. I won't be suprised if he hits 40 this season.
It was important to get rid of Heatley, no doubt there. I didn't expect the return to be so pathetic though. I knew Heatley's value went down, but seriously...c'mon, I don't even think Mike Milbury would have done this trade.
In the end though, Murray has added up 100 points that Heatley could have gotten over the summer, with Kovalev, Michalek and Cheechoo. Fortunately it's over 2 lines also. Which could(and probably will) mean that Ottawa will be a contender again. In1-2 years they will be a threat, mark my words. I'm excited for that.
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Post by V-HAB on Sept 12, 2009 22:53:53 GMT -5
Exactly. I think Murray did a nice job with Ottawa's offense this offseason. In my opinion, Ottawa's D still needs a lot of work though. And Leclaire is a pretty big question mark.
Also, Spezza scoring 40 is a really big stretch. I could see Michalek hitting 40 before Spezza, if anything.
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Post by Carson! on Sept 12, 2009 23:08:13 GMT -5
Exactly. I think Murray did a nice job with Ottawa's offense this offseason. In my opinion, Ottawa's D still needs a lot of work though. And Leclaire is a pretty big question mark. Also, Spezza scoring 40 is a really big stretch. I could see Michalek hitting 40 before Spezza, if anything. Leclaire is healthier than ever, and weither he's a question mark or not, he's still one of Ottawa's best goalies ever(Hasek doesn't count!). Michalek has yet to hit 30 goals while Spezza had over 30 goals in his worst season. Spezza seems to score more goals every year, I wouldn't be surprised if he got 40 this year. Granted I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't. The D, is mediocre at best. Not terrible though, definetly underrated. Last years record made them look absolutely terrible until Clouston stepped in. I remember Phllips was a -26 at one point and from February to April he brought himself to a -11. So I think the D will look better this season. |
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Post by V-HAB on Sept 12, 2009 23:22:08 GMT -5
Michalek has yet to hit thirty goals because he was always overshadowed by other players in San Jose. He played on Thornton's line for two years, but Cheechoo was also on that line and he was Joe's go-to guy, scoring 56 and 37 goals in two consecutive seasons. He was then demoted along with Cheechoo as guys like Marleau and Setoguchi took up more ice time.
Pavelski is a good center, but he's not Thornton, or in this case, Spezza.
Michalek is probably gonna get a ton of ice time. I would say he gets 30-35. My guess would be Spezza gets something like 30-35 goals as well, 80-90 points.
And I don't see how you can proclaim that Leclaire is one of Ottawa's best goalies ever before he has even played a game with the Senators. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. And I wasn't even talking about health issues. He has ONE good season. That's not proof of anything, let's see if he can repeat it first.
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Post by Carson! on Sept 12, 2009 23:49:14 GMT -5
And I don't see how you can proclaim that Leclaire is one of Ottawa's best goalies ever before he has even played a game with the Senators. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. And I wasn't even talking about health issues. He has ONE good season. That's not proof of anything, let's see if he can repeat it first. I said that because his only good season was the one where he stayed healthy. Every other season he has played was cut short because of his heatlh. That one good season was proof enough to be ottawa's better goalies. Gerber, Auld, Lalime and Emery don't have much on him. |
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Post by V-HAB on Sept 12, 2009 23:58:37 GMT -5
One year of stats can be deceiving is all I'm saying. He's had the one good year, here it is: (Last two stats are save percentage and shutouts)
2007-08 CLS 54 52 2986 24 17 0 6 3 112 2.25 1379 1267 .919 9
Here is one year of Lalime:
2000-01 OTT 60 60 3607 36 19 5 0 3 141 2.35 1640 1499 .914 7
One year of Emery:
2006-07 OTT 58 56 3351 33 16 0 6 3 138 2.47 1691 1553 .918 5
You can make lots of players look good with only one year. Leclaire is a question mark until he proves himself, that's all I've been saying. I never said he was bad, I'm just saying that "he's the best goalie Ottawa has ever had" is a pretty strong claim to make when you're basing it off ONE year he had with another team in another conference.
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Post by Carson! on Sept 13, 2009 9:05:17 GMT -5
Lol, but most goalies in Ottawa have yet to have one good year, and if you compare the one's with a good year to Leclaire's good year then Leclaire is looking pretty good. Maybe I shouldn't have said "best" but he's young and he's talented, he just needs to stay heathly. Even if he doesn't work out, Elliott has a winning record with this team.  |
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Post by V-HAB on Sept 13, 2009 16:24:52 GMT -5
Lol, but most goalies in Ottawa have yet to have one good year, and if you compare the one's with a good year to Leclaire's good year then Leclaire is looking pretty good. Maybe I shouldn't have said "best" but he's young and he's talented, he just needs to stay heathly. Even if he doesn't work out, Elliott has a winning record with this team. It's not like Elliott has proved much either. You're not gonna get me to agree with you that Ottawa has no question marks in net until the players prove themselves to be reliable goaltenders. |
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Post by Carson! on Sept 13, 2009 16:51:52 GMT -5
I know that, but the way your saying it is as though Ottawa has nothing to look forward to in net. Leclaire/Elliott is a way better goaltending tandem than Emery/Gerber, Emery/Injured and old Hasek, Auld/Gerber and Auld/Elliott. Let's face it those goalies suck, and Ottawa succeeded with them(with the exeption of Gerber and Auld).
I know Leclaire is still unproven but you have to give him the benefit of the doubt here. Even though he's still unproven, I know he's proven to be better then most of Ottawa's goalies in the past, just because Ottawa's goalies have always sucked. Leclaire is still young, his ONLY good season was the ONLY one where he stayed healthy, and he claims to be 100% now, so while I don't expect him to be a Vezina finalist by any means, I do expect him to be a solid goaltender.
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