Strongly advise acquire Heatley, but ONLY conditionally. Understand one way deal shoved down Sens’ throat will only lead to desire for payback down road, so no deal is better than bad deal that poisons trading environment for all; by same token, Ottawa has to get real. Inexpensive players/ prospects w/strong upside are not gonna be given away. Thus forget Sanguinetti etc.; Rosival straight up is not enough talent for them and puts NYR behind on cap space.
{Very quick aside my preliminary thought—- I STRESS PRELIMINARY—- is Redden + Rosival for Flyer’s Briere (need to check out his story first). That roughly works out $$ wise and loses two D roster spots we want to make available for one F.}
Thus using up Rosival in that deal—- and losing Redden is addition by subtraction—- that leaves Gomez. Gomez not the talent of Heatley but different upside. While Gomez more overpaid, his lower total salary is easier to move. Senators—- as they should—- will have to accept price from likes of Les Habs; but that cost aside, Gomez is means by which they get this cleared off their cap, and they avoid the multimillion payment due this week.
I recognize we are not out of the woods yet, but adding Briere and Heatley has more upside than Redden, Rosival + Gomez. Heatley seems $$ oriented, and for a little extra coin, may agree to restructure his contract. Plus he’s not Malkin or Ovechkin but he will get some goals.
To get real cap space, if he will agree to the move early, while your heart wants to keep Lundqvist, logic tells your head he should be moved as the core part of a larger deal to Tampa Bay for 2nd overall Victor Hedman. [The math is undeniable; Lundqvist now commands closer to $6, 6+ mil; Hedman will be huge but can take less $$ (?$2.5 mil?) for his first year, which helps with cap this year.]
We need to sign Hal Gill to be sure to clear the crease.
I think Pittsburgh would consider $2 mil + Dubinski (sign + trade) and Korpikoski as core for deal for Jordan Staal and maybe Kris LeTang.
Need to keep our bluest blue chips and trade many second and third rounders, trading up for talent quantity for quality (exceptions keep Evgeny Grachev and Tysen Dowzak).
Enjoyed your comments, look forward to your feedback.
Regards, bernmeister.

http://slam.canoe.ca/Slam/Hockey/NHL/Ottawa/2009/06/17/9824901-sun.html

If any of us kill someone in a drunken car accident, we’re toast – the double standard is bull and now this guy is pouting about making $7M/year to play hockey in Ottawa? F him

The trade Doodie proposes (“Rozsi-Zherdev-Sanguinetti-Antropov’s rights-Mara’s rights-Morris’s rights for Heatley and Chris Kelly. Obviously that deal needs some tweaking, but it’s a very good start”)is totally without merit.

It is Rozsival and Sanguinetti for Heatley. Those are the only players the Rangers have under contract. Zherdev is and RFA and Morris, Mara and Andropov are UFAs.

Why in the world would Ottawa trade for 4 guys they might never own? And, if they did manage to sign them, it would kill them as far as the cap goes.

Let’s see: Morris made 4 million last season, Mara made 2 million, Andropov made 2 million and Zherdev made 2.5. They are all going to want at least the same money and Zherdev, Andropov and Mara will probably ask for more.

Thats 10.5 million, before any raises, and if you add Rozy’s 5 million and Sang’s .855 million you are at a whopping 16.5 million for all 6 players.

Of course, why would Ottawa even consider trading for 4 impending free agents?

There is no reason to think they all would sign with Ottawa (some could sign back with the Rangers) and if they did, even if Ottawa included Kelly in the deal, they would be picking up at least (if they signed all 4 free agent Rangers to their present salaries) 7 million dollars in cap money.

They are already at 62 million with Heatley and Kelly so they go to 69 million if this unrealistic trade was ever made.

The Rangers would have also traded 4 defenseman they would have to replace to say nothing of their 2 top scorers.

Who do we get to replace the 4 defensemen and who do we bring in at one of the forward spots…and what would the cost be?

Ok, we got Healey on a long term contract at 7.5 million whose point totals have dropped from 50 goals and 55 assists in 2006-2007 to 39 goals and 33 assists this past year, an 11 goal and 22 assist drop.

Conversely, Andropov has shown steady improvement in each of his seasons and had his best year this season with 28 goals (11 fewer than Heatley) and 31 assists (2 fewer than Heatley)

Are 13 points worth 5.5 million in salary? I don’t think so.

Will Andropov continue to improve with Rangers? Will Heatley continue to decline? Do we pay Heatley 7.5 million based on 50 goal seasons 3 and 4 years ago? Was his current season worth 7.5 million?

Granted, you are going to have to give Andropov a raise. Even at 4 million he is a better value, currently, to the Rangers than Heatley is.

Doodie is very good at spending Mr. Dolans millions and putting newly aquired players in Hartford.

It just doesn’t work that way in the real world.

Use that 4 million you are going to save on Naslund to resign Zherdev and Andropov. They each get a 1.5 million
(or slightly less) raise. Let Morris walk and use that 4 million, plus the 1 million left from Naslund to give Mara a million dollar raise. You still have 4 million left. there is the money to give raises to Dubinski and Callahan, a million each, and get Staal a contract extension bump up of a million also. You still have a million left and if you don’t want to resign Zherdev (3.5 million with the million dollar raise) you have 4.5 million left that could land you a pretty good player.

You have opened up a spot on defense for one of an inexpensive Sanguinetti, DelZ, Sauer or Potter.

Sure, that is some forward thinking but the point is this: Taking on a huge salary for a player who has been in decline while losing 4 defensemen and your 2 best scorers doesn’t make much sense. Trying to keep the players you want frees up the money necessary to do so.

5.5 million bucks isn’t worth 13 additional points.

At least not in my book.

That much money requires production..plain and simple
as many people who think Betts foes a great job would crucify him if he made 6 million a year and killed penalties well….I mean Drury kills penealties just as well and nobody cares…see?

That money is for superstar forawards only

They both have had two career average seasons….

Sather and the fans think you “pay the money” and then they become big time scorers…

It doesnt work that way

In a similar vein, Drury played more than half the year with Aaron Voros on his line. I can not stress this enough, Aaron Voros is not an NHL caliber player. He’d be a subpar 4th liner, and Renney had him playing with Drury all year. Voros probably had naked pictures of Renney hidden away somewhere for blackmailing purposes so he wouldn’t get sent down. Drury’s contract will always be too much, but when he gets stuck with guys who are only capable of 9 points a year what is he supposed to do? And love him or hate him, the players and coaches all like him and respect him. That shows that he is a leader on this team.

Feel free to disagree, but I think those 2 guys are getting more criticism than is really necessary.

Colton Orr makes Mitch Fritz’s peeper gush Hemoglobin :

http://www.rangercrisis.com

Colton Orr makes Mitch Fritz’s peeper gush Hemoglobin :

http://www.rangercrisis.com