Mr.TaterSalad

I don't think I've been too critical of Stevie directly. Disappointed that we haven't gotten it done yet, but not critical of him in the way I was of Holland for years. I have said numerous times in this thread that I still believe in what he's doing because I genuinely do. What I have questioned and wondered allowed, along with others, is where the goal scoring is going to come from to catch us up with the rest of the league and get us out of the bottom 10. If he pulls off this trade I'll give him all the props in the world for it. Debrincat is a good, highly skilled player, who fits our biggest need and fits our timeline. Make it happen Stevie!

Victor Wembanyama slapped Brittney Spears? Edit: It looks like his security may have had an issue where one of the security guards inadvertently pushed/accidentally hit Brittney Spears trying to push her away.

We already have a Lindstrom on the team too. Last time we had both a Lindstrom and an Eiserman on the roster I'd reckon to say we were pretty good.

It'd be our luck that he would have a Jason Pierre-Paul type of injury. Unlike JPP though, who is a DLineman and can get by with the hand injury he sustained, a WR cannot. Luckily Williams is ok and intact for his own sake.

This was shared by a poster on HF Boards regarding the trade and is from TSN's Darren Dreger. "TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger said on the Ray and Dregs Podcast that the winger is looking for a contract similar to the one Timo Meier signed with the New Jersey Devils last week - eight years, $70.2 million, with an average annual value of $8.775 million. Dreger notes, however, that acquiring teams see DeBrincat's value as being close to Jesper Bratt, who inked an eight-year, $63 million contract with the Devils, carrying a cap hit of $7.875 million." "If that’s holding up a trade, and it sounds like it might be, then it’s got to be up to Alex DeBrincat to reconsider or maybe he stays in Ottawa,” Dreger said."

It's not that we should just make a trade for the sake of it. My initial ideal of offering both first round picks to get Debrincat was off-base and ridiculous. But so where the deals that said we should just offer up a 2nd and Zadina and somehow that would get it done. It's somewhere in the middle of that. The same thing goes for William Nylander, who is a superior player to Debrincat. We can't sell the entire farm to get Nylander. If we aren't on his list of teams he won't play for, the call should certainly be placed and if he's the guy Toronto is moving to get under the cap, I think an offer should be made as he fits both need and timeline. We need goal scoring in the worst way possible. We have an up-and-coming defense that should be good enough to carry us into the playoffs and beyond. Outside of Raymond, who is already on the roster, and possibly Nate Danielson, who do we have in the pipeline that is any kind of serious scoring threat? Who is a guy that is going to be on this roster in the next 2-4 years that will be a 30+ goal scorer and 60+ point a season guy? As @lordstanley said, we don't just pay Yzerman to find average NHL players who can score 15 goals, get you 20 assists, and sign them to 3x$3.5 type of deals. We want him to be prudent and smart about signing those types of players who we need to round out our roster's depth. But we also need him to be bold and smartly aggressive. We need him to make impact, franchise changing moves that will improve this team and accelerate our timeline to being a contender. In our case, we need those moves made to add scoring and goal totals to our roster. If we had gotten any amount of lottery luck and landed ourselves a Connor Bedard, Quinton Byfield, Jack Hughes type of player in the draft this conversation would be different. But we didn't, and alas here we are talking about making a bold trade for an Alex Debrincat or William Nylander type of player. I don't want to mortgage the farm and future for one guy. I also don't want to make the playoffs just for the sake of it. Kenny did that and I hated it and wanted him fired for it. I wanted a complete tank job and rebuild after Kenny left and I got it. That said, I also don't want to be sitting her 2-3 years from now in year 7 of a rebuild having not made any significant progress to being a Cup-contending team, with an over 30 year old Dylan Larkin on the roster and trying to build around that. We pay Yzerman to be both smart and bold as needed. Adding a Nylander or Debrincat can both and accelerate the timeline of our rebuild.

Someone with a high cap number has to be the odd man out in Toronto as they are waaaaay over the cap at $8.1 million. Nylander is rumored to be dissatisfied and Pierre LeBrun reported that he and Toronto aren't even close on a contract. And we got what Toronto could want in return, plenty of draft capital and cheap prospects for their farm. Look, I know chances of this happening are about as good as Al Avila leading an organization to a World Series one day. But let me have my holiday and free agency fun. Don't crush a man's dreams just because he's on the whacky weed.

Toronto is now $8.1 million over the cap having signed Baby Bert and Max Domi. Any chance they get rid of William Nylander and any chance at all we're in play? Who am I kidding, he's not a right side defenseman and we're not in it to win it just yet. Hell, Toronto may not even be fielding trade calls on him. But unless the NHL cap is fugazi, they have to make bold moves to get under it and trading Nylander is certainly one of those. But I can dream can I not? Get me William Nylander and Alex Debrincat and all of a sudden we're smoking!!!

This has to be the year Boston finally regresses, no?

I have FAPTSD (Free Agency Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) because I read the name Cleary instead of the world clearly in your sentence there.

Something tells me if Gostisbehere is playing well by the deadline and we're all but officially out of playoff contention that he could get flipped for a pick/picks. I like the signing though for what it is. Being over 30 he doesn't our timeline long-term, but I like the deal.

A star as in trading for William Nylander? Like they type of star?

I like that Compher signing for depth scoring. I'm more excited about the Debrincat news though that his agent has been given permission to speak with certain other teams. I am holding out hope that we're one of those teams and that Stevie is talking to his agent. If we needed Debrincat and Compher that'd be solid.

Unless Raymond steps up in a big way or some unforeseen rookie comes up and has a huge year, I don't see where the offensive production is going to come from on this team. Do we have more than one or two players next year that are capable of netting more than 25 goals and 50 points? I expect 35 year old David Perron to regress at some point in the very near future. Where is the production coming from, with or without his regression?

The Supreme Court should be like NASCAR, with all their sponsors and billionaire giftgivers listed. I wonder if Coke would be willing to sponsor Clarence Thomas?

I wonder how right wing Christians would feel being refused service at a business simply on the basis of being right wing Christian? The ever aggrieved white, Christian right wins again thanks to their blatantly partisan Supreme Court legislating from the bench against laws and rulings they personally don't like. From affirmative action to bodily autonomy to student loans to LGBTQ+ rights to environmental protections, they are striking down things not on the basis of interpreting constitutionality, but because things do or don't align with their own personal agenda. I'm old enough to remember when Republicans and the Christian right supposedly were against activist judges, making laws and legislating from the bench.

Really bummed to see Suzy Kolber lose her job. I always enjoyed her work as an ESPN NFL host on TV.

**** Disney and **** what they did to ESPN and every hard working person and personality who lost their job today. Corporate media is detestable!

Especially when one of those guys is a bum like Ben Chiarot.

I hope Yzerman has a plan to make up for our scoring deficit long term whether this offseason or next. We were bottom 10 in the league in goal totals, goals per game, shot totals, shots per game, shot attempts % Corsi, assist totals, and assists per game. Under 26 year old players, who have a history of scoring 30+ and 40+ goals in a season, who also want to play for you (allegedly) don't grow on trees. I trust Yzerman, but it really stinks passing on a guy like Debrincat. He fits sooooo much of what we need.

Yzerman started behind the 8 ball though compared to Vegas and Seattle. George McPhee in Vegas and Ronnie Francis in Seattle started with clean slates and all the cap space in the world. Yzerman had to clear millions in cap space from Kenny's mess and unload several bad players/contracts off the roster. When you combine that with absolutely zero lottery luck to land a superstar player on offense, that really set us back compared to those teams. One can also point out that we got almost nothing of value from the last 2-3 drafts of Ken Holland and company. To be sure, Yzerman is not and should not be free from criticism. He's made some moves I disagree with like signing Ben Chiarot and pairing him with Mo Seider, not going after Alex Debrincat (or so it seems for now), and drafting so heavily on defense when we are bottom 10 in most offensive/scoring metrics. But it must still be acknowledged, in line with any criticism, just how far behind Yzerman was and just how big a hole this franchise was in thanks to the last few years of Ken Holland.

Joe Harris doesn't play defense from what I understand right? So we brought in a 3 point shooter who doesn't play defense to try and trade another 3 point shooter in Bogdanovic who doesn't play defense? You can't put Harris and Bogdanovic on the floor at the same time if neither plays a lick of defense right?

Matt Duchene bought out in Nashville. He's probably too old for our timeline at 32.