Thursday, September 14, 2006

 

Tarantula Head Dons a New Dinner Jacket

Odds and sods...

Anson Carter, after months of being snubbed for the likes of Mike Sillinger, finally found a loving home in Columbus after signing a $2.5mil/1 year dealio.

Now, if I were a fan of the BJs (well, I am...kinda...ummm) I'd be scratching my head (not THAT head) wondering "Why is MacLean playing hardball with Zherdev and then forking over big bucks for Tarantula Head?"

If I were Doug MacLean, I'd probably respond with "duuuuh...dur...umm... d'oh!"

This move also miffs me because now my boy Jaroslav Balastik is guaranteed not to get a real shot at the top 2 lines and any offensive ice time of note, barring a crucial injury to Fredrick Modin or Carter himself. Anyone got a lead pipe??

Well, good on Carter for finally finding a contract that gives him a raise. It looked like he'd come out of this whole free agent bonanza almost empty-handed. I guess there is always a sucker, somewhere.

The St. Louis Blues recovered nicely from the news that Vladimir Orszagh contracted Pavel Bure Knee Disease and signed Radek Dvorak, the Czech Todd Marchant, for $1mil/1 year. Dvorak, overall, should give the Blues an equal impact player but with far less Slovakian style.

*Sigh*

Poor Vlady. His knee never recovered and he'll miss most or all of the season thanks to his knee injury. The Blues don't have a lot to look forward to, and Vladimir Orszagh was one of the few bright spots I was looking forward to. As my Blues fan contact over AIM told me, Vlado had great chemistry with Cajanek and Tkachuk late in the season before his knee gave out on him.

The NHL will allow bigger curves on sticks. It's about time! We all know men like big curves, so why deny nature and goal scoring?

Keith Primeau is retiring. Good riddiance you greedy assmunch.

Canucks will be matching Booby Clarke's $1.9mil/1year offer for Ryan Kesler. No big shock. The Canucks HAVE to match that offer. They can't afford to let go of a fine young talent (and a 1st rounder at that) and get a stupid 2nd round draft pick in return. Thanks to Bob Clarke for the big salary raise, Ryan... I can't wait for the other NHL GM's to get their retribution by offering similar deals to the Flyers young talent like Fred Meyer IV and so forth in the future. The old boys club will have revenge!!!11111..

Yes, I fully understand why Clarke did the offer and I would have done the same thing in his position. It's not his concern that the Canucks have to scramble to pay the salary for a 10-goal scorer. That doesn't mean Bob Clarke doesn't deserve to be skewered with a fish knife.

Comments:
"Why is MacLean playing hardball with Zherdev and then forking over big bucks for Tarantula Head?"

Because Zherdev and his agent -- Hedges, or whatever his name is -- rescinded on an earlier claim that so long as they got a longer deal, the price tag would be lower. If you've seen the most recent offers traded between the two sides, you can see that they more or less flipped MacLean the bird, told him he took too long to make a deal, and now he has to pay for it. There's more than one side to the contract dispute here, and Hedges was just as much a moron as MacLean was.

Is pride involved? Oh, no doubt about it. But even so, I know I finally lost my patience with Zherdev a couple weeks ago. But that doesn't mean I'm not agitated by MacLean and his inability to start talks and make progress sooner.

Either way, Carter has an upside and a downside. He has had two previous seasons where he got 55+ points, and for all intents and purposes can be relied on as a more rounded player than Zherdev could've this season. So at the moment, it's a good salve to the wound. But it's still no permanant band-aid, unless Carter does even better this season than the last.
 
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