buconvict {l Wrote}:eepstein0 {l Wrote}:It was a good trade. Kobassew is useless and Svbotka or however you spell it will be fine. Their waiting to make a move at Kovolchuk.
Ahh, the old "The Bruins are trading everyone for pennies on the dollar so they can make a midseason trade for _____" argument. Gotta love it. Hey, when is Forsberg signing with the B's anyway?
The Bruins gave up on this season the day they decided to not bring Kessel back. I don't care that he is injured and wouldn't be playing anyway. When you send that message to the players, you undermine their spirit. You further erode that spirit when you trade Aaron Ward for Eaves, then WAIVE Eaves so you can save an extra 800K.
Honestly, Bruins management is Boston's new Gingerbot.
Bleep bloop cap space bloop bloop blurp puck-moving defenseman bleep blorp forechecking bloop bleep Krejci and Wheeler are better than Kessel bleep bloop draft picks blorp.Six months ago, the Bruins were good. Really good. Then they played poorly for one week and got eliminated. Then they got the Winter Classic, Jacobs got 2K new season tickets sold, and they started to slash payroll and eliminate the best players. It astounds me that fools like Flyingelvii can look at what is taking place and buy into the GDF-esque rhetoric of "Well Kessel doesn't forecheck so he sucks, and Kobasew sucks too and Brad Boyes sucked too so we traded them all to clear space and get Stanley Cup caliber players like Shawn Thornton and Dennis Wideman and Byron Bitz".
The Bruins are fucking terrible right now, and no, they will not trade their precious draft picks for Kovalchuk in February. After all, why add the salary and lose the picks when you're sitting in 7th place? They need to think about the FUTURE. It's not like the had
one hundred and twenty fucking seven points last season or anything. They need to keep the picks so thy can draft a young superstar like Phil Kessel. Or maybe they'll do themseves one betterand draft all-world puckmovers like Eric Hamell.
Fuck the Bruins. They're clueless and they suck and the fans deserve better.
/rant
*Even though I'm always arguing with Elvii, I respect you.
Alright, there is just some factual stuff wrong with this. Ward got traded for Eaves, Eaves was waived because he was paid a ridiculous amount for a 4th liner like Eaves ($3.1 million over the next two years) for a significantly reduced expense (about a $260k cap hit over the next three years). Just to get an idea of Eaves market value, he signed a 1-year deal for $500k with Detroit after getting bought out. They took the savings from Ward's contract and Eaves buyout and signed Derek Morris to a $3.3 million contract, which is overpaying a little bit but Morris is a significant upgrade over Ward in that he can be a 2-4, whereas Ward was clearly the number 4 defenseman at the end of the season (Mark Stuart is going to be absolutely filthy this year...was the 2nd best d-man in the playoffs last year IMO).
Dennis Wideman is a very good defenseman. Boyes would not have scored 40 goals in Julien's system as he did not play any defense whatsoever. That doesn't jibe with Claude, which is why Kessel sat a few playoff games 2 years ago (a retarded thing to do IMO). My guess for Boyes would be low-to-mid 30s. Good, but with puck-moving defensemen a rarity in the NHL, Wideman is a very good player, especially when you put him in Julien's system.
Bitz and Thornton's contracts take up a little more than $1 million and, with Begin centering them, they have been the most consistent line the B's have had through this stretch. They're far from the cause of the B's problems
Payroll was also never slashed. This offseason Chia signed Krejci at the beginning of the offseason to a significant pay raise, got some cap space with the Ward trade, with which everyone assumed he was gonna sign Kessel, spent it on Morris, and aside from that, gave Looch a big pay raise as he's gonna be an RFA next year. Not to mention they have to clear cap space for next year when Stuart (see my above prediction), Tuukka (I LOVE TIM THOMAS' CONTRACT!!!!1111!!!), Big Daddy Wheels, Sobotka, and Boychuk all become RFAs. My guess is that Stuart, Tuukka, and Wheels all get signed as I'm just not sure given the lack of PT for Sobotka and Boychuk so far. The big numbers that come off the cap are the corpse of Glen Murray's contract ($1.383 million), Ference's albatross of a contract ($1.4 million), Recchi ($1.7 million), Morris ($3.3 million), and Savvy ($5 million). That's about $13 million coming off the books for a team that's already right against the cap.
By trading Kobasew, who has been the constant rumor of trade rumors because of his contract, they cleared $3.3 million for next year while losing a guy who is a good but unspectacular 3rd-liner. Guys like that shouldn't earn $3.3 million, they should be in the $2-2.5 million range. Plus that $3.3 million is going to be huge in determining what they do after the year's over. You are grossly estimating the contributions of Kobasew.
Edit: I wholeheartedly agree about missing Kessel's speed. Can definitely see this when they have difficulty breaking out on the PP. Kessel was very good at getting the puck on his stick, gaining the blue line, and single-handedly setting up the PP. Believe me, I do not have an agenda like that ass-clown Kevin-Paul Dupont.