Sunday, July 01, 2007
#94 for the Avalanche?
by Greg
In the last few minutes, there's been a flurry of reports, and now-- TSN is saying Ryan Smyth joins the Avalanche, five years/$31.25 million.
Presuming that this isn't all some great cosmic joke, and the Avalanche actually used the money to bring back Pierre Turgeon, I'm pretty damn happy with the team's performance in the free agent frenzy. Smyth was one of the forwards that I found most appealing (along with Drury), and Hannan will eat up minutes on the back end. Both great pickups.
This is kind of foreign territory for me -- the Avalanche have never been big UFA players. There was the Kariya/Selanne debacle in 2003 -- prior to that, the team's biggest-ever UFA pickup was probably... Dave Reid. Then post-lockout came Andrew Brunette and Ian Laperriere (hooray!) and Pierre Turgeon and Patrice Brisebois (boo!). At least at this point, Smyth and Hannan look pretty good.
And there's still enough money for the Avalanche to pick up Tomas Kloucek! As insurance, you understand.
In the last few minutes, there's been a flurry of reports, and now-- TSN is saying Ryan Smyth joins the Avalanche, five years/$31.25 million.
Presuming that this isn't all some great cosmic joke, and the Avalanche actually used the money to bring back Pierre Turgeon, I'm pretty damn happy with the team's performance in the free agent frenzy. Smyth was one of the forwards that I found most appealing (along with Drury), and Hannan will eat up minutes on the back end. Both great pickups.
This is kind of foreign territory for me -- the Avalanche have never been big UFA players. There was the Kariya/Selanne debacle in 2003 -- prior to that, the team's biggest-ever UFA pickup was probably... Dave Reid. Then post-lockout came Andrew Brunette and Ian Laperriere (hooray!) and Pierre Turgeon and Patrice Brisebois (boo!). At least at this point, Smyth and Hannan look pretty good.
And there's still enough money for the Avalanche to pick up Tomas Kloucek! As insurance, you understand.
Labels: avalanche, Ryan Smyth, tomas kloucek, UFA
