Love the Pittsburgh trade.. Ok on Rutta or Schen to go but keep Colburn

Observation.. 5 of top 8 D are in last year of contract (UFA or RFA) .. and Colburn is 2 years as #6 .. D position lacks proper LT contracting because we waste LT contracts on Gourde and Shrimps .. again not a Cup winning formula

Its also because they're shifting from the old hats to the young guy. Cernak and Sergachev will get LT deals this year, then theres Foote. Would you rather they hand out Gourde esc contracts to Rutta, Shattenkirk and Shenn?

Hey Einstein .. there is no Cap room for LT deals for Serg and Cernek.. Cirelli a center is arguably more valuable and also an RFA .. they screwed up and pay next year

Something hovering around $5m is market rate for defensively responsible ~50pt wingers. Johnson, Palat, and Gourde all fit that upon signing. Oshie, Wilson, Zucker, Reilly Smith, Little, etc. are all comparables. We can’t just pair our stars with the Syracuse Crunch and expect to win anything. Our prospect development has been the best in the League under Cooper, so when he doesn’t want to replace Gourde with 30 point rookie Mathieu Joseph, he knows what he’s doing. He regularly gave Cirelli and Cernak ~20 minutes per night (as well as Point in his rookie season and by his sophomore season he was centering the main shutdown line), so he obviously recognizes talent, and if he tells BriseBois that certain players are not expendable, it means they’re not expendable. Players like Cernak and Sergachev will probably take the same bridge deal everyone else does and just barely fit. We haven’t screwed anything up. Trading Gourde, Johnson, and Palat for cap relief this off-season would have been screwing up.

Talking about making a dialogue fit your endpoint .. Capitals Wilson in same breath as shrimps is saying you should stick to video games

Tom Wilson is a physical player who wins fights, which those players are not. But Gourde and Johnson have outscored Tom Wilson since Gourde’s rookie season. Wilson’s career high is 40pts, and he plays with Ovechkin and Kuznetsov. Gourde’s career low (in a full season) is 48pts (playing on a third line), and Johnson’s is 38pts (mainly due to an injury). There’s no question as to who the better scorers are. They have similar salaries because of the premium the Capitals paid for his physical abilities, but when all things are considered, Gourde and Johnson are at least that valuable. Maybe we would benefit more from Wilson’s skillset, but it’s not available to us. The point is, those players all signed at market value and provide us the depth that allows us to win in this League. The Capitals missed the playoffs twice with Ovechkin and Semin, and the Bruins missed a couple of times with Marchand and Bergeron. Pairing Stamkos, Kucherov, and Point with undeveloped prospects and gritty forwards who lack speed or scoring abilities is not a winning formula. I get that people like Killorn might have to be moved eventually or we’ll lose other talent, but keeping our wingers was not screwing up.

Just utter delusion.. definition of insanity.. doing same thing over and over and expecting a different result.. my 12 year old niece could get 40 pts playing with Kuch and Point .. as Johnson Gourde (before inevitable demotion cause he nothing but a 4th liner) and Palat benefitted from periodically throughout year .. Cirelli is clear #4 ranked forward then Joseph .. the rest are just role players with 5M AAV with LT NTCs. Ferland Dzinhel Compher and dozens other forwards who are "similar" between 2M and 3.5M AAV that is market .. and this thread is hereby ended.