Thursday, August 4, 2011

Optimissm

Robin Zander once sang "Mommy's alright, Daddy's alright, they just seem a little weird."  In the case of the Predators fan, David Poile is daddy.  As of right now, it looks like David Poile has had the worst off season in Predators history.  To recap:

Our rfa's never got there qualifying offers.
Come July first the predators did not sign a single free agent.
Not only did we not sign any free agents, but we lost Marcel Goc, Shane O'brien, Joel Ward, Steve Sullivan, Mark Dekanich, and J.p. Dumont.
Cody Franson and Matt Lombardi were traded to Toronto for Brett Lebda and Zack Sortini
The only signing has been an AHL d-man.
Finally, Shea Weber not only made it to arbitration, but Poile put in a 4.75 million dollar offer.

This all looks bad, it does, but in all honesty, it just looks that way.  All of the rfa's were resigned to deals before their arbitration dates.  Every free agent that signed on July first was dramatically overpaid.  Marcel Goc was a loss, and was only slightly over paid, but his loss unclogs the log jam that was the Predators center situation.  As far as the players being lost, only O'brein, Ward and Franson were regulars in the line up this year.  The low ball offer was simple strategy.  You have to put in a low ball offer if you want to balance out the opposing high ball offer.  So honestly, it looks a lot worse then it actually is.  The line up has questions, especially on the blue line, but we have the deepest defense core in the league, with three or four guys who are suppose to be NHL ready.  And the future has questions, will the big three sign long term, where are we going as a team, will we win a cup?  Those will be answered in time, but for right now, this season looks full of promise.  Worry if you will, but know that in a contract year we see the best in players, and we have a lot of players in their contract years.

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