So, there we were, eyes stinging at 3:00 am, no beer left. No dirt on Cooke, nothing on Jarogr Jarmr. Naslund? Today is the day, and mum is the word. Satan still calling Ray Shero about "playink on the wink". Various sources report Sidney personally called Miroslav late last night to ask him to "go into your basement, find your hammer, and kill yourself".
We did lock Gino up. We brought back Orps, the guy who until last season I thought would never grow out of what I commonly refer to as his "blunt instrument phase". Indications are that we're going to announce Fleury's new deal soon, a purported $5.5M deal over 6 seasons. We've also decided to bring back Eaton and Dupuis.
Despite all the excitement, the first signing of July 1 was a mysterious 3 year deal for martial arts expert Eric Godard at 750k. I watch Calgary a lot, which is where Godarrd played last season, so I'll just say it now: He's Krzysztof Oliwa, but not from Tychy, Poland. People in our conference have no idea how broken their orbital bone is about to be.
Brian Burke is calling out Kevin Lowe for the inflation of RFA salaries. Big shock there. What I want to know is why he's stopped calling the Oilers a team in the sewer, etc, because that is quality stuff.
In another shocking development, on only day three of free agency, Philadelphia is roughly $1M over the NHL salary cap. It takes special talent to trade the wrong fringe winger (R.J.), signtrade for more unstable defenders (Ossi, reportedly have the inside track on Boyle), and provide easy targets for the fan base while doing it over the cap. Its OK though, they have the best player there ever was, Mike Richards.
So here is what we need to do today, granted we sign Fleury to this deal. We'll have roughly 9.089M of cap space with which to work, and we're going to need roughly 2.7M at the deadline for Gaborik's remaining 7.5M. It really is too bad he's got a back-heavy contract. Yes, I think we're going to aggressively pursue the other Marian, and I do think Ryan Whitney is headed the other way. Anyway, back to today, I think we offer Williams a 5 year deal. He's a great player, potentially a 20-goal scorer each of those 5 years. $3M a season? He's like a #6 or #7 forward on this team, but the versatility is worth the extra 750k.
We then try and get Naslund signed. We're missing one top-six wing, because I don't think they'll risk playing Williams and Dupuis with Sid all year if we want home ice this Spring. Matt Cooke is on the radar apparently, which would signify the bitter, bitter end of Jonathan Filewich's career as a Penguin and make roster spots almost impossible for WB/S Penguins.
Naslund to decide soon, also reports that Ottawa are close to trading for Boyle. I'm taking a breather, then I am going to post some plan A, plan B scenarios depending on signings/trades.
Shero is under pressure to get at least 1 top-six guy one way or another before training camp.
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