Originally Posted by
Flacco's_Haircut
I agree about the Melnyk thing. I'll always be grateful for him coming in and saving the team, but at this point it's best that we have owners that allow us to compete especially when there are rumoured interested parties out there with the funds (Desmarais and the Cirque de soleil guy and their rumoured Lebreton coup). I think at this point he's just hanging on to get the Lebreton rink started and he'll sell the team when the value is at it's highest.
I don't think Karlsson is going anywhere. I would hope Melnyk learned from the Alfredsson fiasco (don't get me started on that and how it got us into this mess with Bobby Ryan) and will just give him a blank cheque. I don't know if there would be any contending teams that would be able to fit in a $9-10mil contract without making major moves to their core.
Things are certainly going to be interesting when Turris and Stone come up for new contracts. At this point I'm pretty much in the get rid of Bobby Ryan for anything you can get before its too late camp, he appears to be going full on Heatley and that contract is already bad.
What is going to be big for us the next couple years will be how guys like Chabot, White, and Brown come along. If they can become important parts of our team over the next couple years then we might be able to move to cup contender status. If not, we're probably still treading water. It's such a frustrating team to watch how it's managed. It's like above average is good enough for them these days. I would always say at least one my teams (Ravens) has pretty competent management. Making deals like throwing in a draft pick in the Zibanejad / Brassard deal to save $2 million are just infuriating.