radoran

There are some hockey fans in Phoenix and while everyone likes to say "Desert = hot" the High Desert can be Very Very Cold. It's a Top 10 media market which has serious value for the league. The franchise, however, is a joke. Always has been.

The issue is that there's no monetary benefit to going to Quebec City for the league. Quebec couldn't support the team before. They don't have have the population of the corporate support to be competitive. And "Quebec's team" will always be Montreal. Adding major US media markets has a tangible revenue affect. That said, I agree that Atlanta is a terrible idea as is expansion in general.

Dallas slots in right between Montreal and Vancouver. No, really. https://www.hockey-reference.com/friv/attendance.cgi

The whole "be the worst" thing gets you less than a 1 in 5 chance of the top lottery pick - 18.5%. You want to base the future of your franchise on those odds, I wish you well in Vegas. They have none of those things and are poised to have *checks notes* none of those things. On other news, Glendale, AZ just renamed themselves after Taylor Swift for a weekend for her tour opening. Pretty sure they're never going to be "Coyote City". Honestly, an NHL team playing in a 5,000 seat college hockey arena is a disgrace and a joke. And it's one that's going to go on for at least the next two seasons.

Nothing will happen until they find out who/what they get in the draft anyway.

You have one team headed to the playoffs and another moving higher in the draft lottery. It's not a mystery

https://www.masslive.com/bruins/2023/03/andrei-svechnikov-injury-hurricanes-star-will-have-season-ending-surgery.html Season ending knee surgery for the Canes forward. Bad news for the Canes playoffs.

TO BE PERFECTLY CLEAR IF CHUCK FLETCHER WAS STILL HERE, I WOULDN'T TRUST HIM TO GET A GOOD RETURN WHILE RETAINING SALARY ON AN EXPIRING FREE AGENT 20-GOAL SCORING FORWARD MUCH LESS A BLUE CHIP LIKE CARTER HART. Just so we're clear.

Hayes has a M-NTC so that's a problem. The deal has to be somewhere he wants to go... Depends on if you think this team is "rebuilt" in the next 3-5 years. Moving Hart in this situation has nothing at all to do with who else is in the system. You don't win without a superstar and you don't get a superstar by drafting in the mid to low end of the draft. Successful teams these days generally have multiple, home grown, high picks. You either take the time - like the Devils - to gather those picks or you go the Rangers route which would be having a good young core (as the Flyers with York, Konecny, Farabee, etc.) to add a Panarin-type (Matthews) to and be ready to compete in the next 2-3 seasons. Is the comparison apples to apples? No. One is projecting that some of the younger talent in the A/bubble (Foerster, Brink, Allison...) will be 20/50 type players and you are adding a superstar to complement them. The Flyers aren't competing against themselves - they are competing against other teams with better, younger players. That was their failure during the VeeGees years - their "stars" simply weren't as good as other teams' stars. By a long shot. Farabee and Konecny may be 25-30 goal players, but that's not on the same level of other teams' top scorers. The reason to be targeting a Matthews rightnow is that he actually could be available. Tronno is talking about needing to move someone. That's an opportunity that should at the very least be explored. It could be that now is not the time to make that move. It just happens that the opportunity may be there. A "rebuild" that's back to the "make the playoffs and anything can happen" phillyosophy simply isn't going to work, because it never has.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck Chuck? Asking for a friend.

The Habs have had two in the past 40 years. They have one Cup to show for it. 30 years ago. Agree that the return would need to be huge. That's what I'm talking about. Some other damn media fool mentioned getting Jack Campbell in a return, which is just smacked ass insane. The Flyers win the deal or the deal doesn't happen. The Leaes are in a cap crunch, may need to move one of their big names, need a goalie, and are in desperate win now mode. If one can't put them over a barrel in that situation, don't do it

Agree 100%, but the real question is can they actually put a team in front of him that he can be the centerpiece of, or does he wind up being Carey Price tilting at proverbial windmills on a franchise that can't get over the hump? It would suck to have him go off and win a Cup in *shudder* Tronno, but it would also suck for him to be the best player on a team going nowhere. To be able to acquire a superstar piece plus get rid of Hayes are general parameters of a deal I'm willing to at least look at. And I'm not at all saying that that's the sum total of the deal. Just the starting point.

I don't want him in a decision making capacity, but if he wants to get his feet wet like Briere did, that's another story. Hiring "a name" is one of the organization's* big problems.

You don't trade Hart "to trade Hart" you do it to maximize the value of your assets and improve the team. If that deal isn't there, don't make it.

I'm only moving Hart for the deal "I" want and am not interested in cleaning up other people's messes. If the deal isn't there I'm happy holding on to him.

Adding Matthews and losing Hayes seems like a win/win. Hart is dangerously close to being the next Carey Price who last I looked has won bubkus and been in two Finals.

Obviously you need to nail all that (contract, etc) down as part of the deal. It's more wild speculation but I do think they need (and want) to do something to radically change course.

We're essentially back to where they were after Holmgren left them in the huge cap crunch. Briere is the new Hextall. I say flip Hart to Tronno for Matthews and make them take 50% of Hayes with him. Tronno gains $5M in cap space...

It's almost an argument for "tanking"...

I forgot about Ellis and didn't scroll far enough down cap friendly.... The Arizona Salary Dump exists. They could use a Cam Atkinson to fill up cap space for a few years. I'd honestly try to retain as much salary over a buyout, but I have not run specific numbers as they didn't get back to me before just going with the Good Ol' Boy. Sanheim is a Voracek level problem. A signing that didn't need to happen when it did that committed too much for too long to the wrong player. I wish I was wrong about that - then and now...

I've been hoping to be wrong for 10+ years now...

There's no one on the squad over the age of 25 that's going to be here "when it turns around". They are the core now. For the next two seasons, signed: Couturier, Atkinson, Konecny, Sanheim, Provorov, Ristolainen, Laughton, Deslauriers, Hayes, Farabee. That's ~$55M of cap space right there. Unless you move some of that out, there's not going to be significant room to move others in. To the earlier point, one of them is under 25.

This whole situation is demonstrative of organizational* incompetence at every level. The Flyers PAID to take a guy off their hands that a CUP CONTENDER just PAID to acquire for their playoff run. The SAME TEAM that the Flyers PAID to get DeAngelo from. This is emblematic of an organization* with no long term plan.

As I said, starting point...