NHL Playoffs Thread...

Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
what you said was the hossa trade was stupid, but that sure sounds like a great argument to do it
No, you've been missing the entire contention of my argument for months: the Hossa trade is stupid NOT PRIMARILY because Hossa wasn't going to resign, but because they traded away viable, cheap under-contract 2nd and 3rd line players for him when anyone who's ever looked at nhlnumbers.com knew the Penguins were going to have an impending free agent crush EVEN WITHOUT Hossa.

Regardless of Hossa, they were going to have to sign Malkin, MAF, and Staal to long-term deals over the next 14 months, which anyone with a calculator and a general sense of what players go for nowadays knew was going to cause them to have to lose some of their secondary guys like Malone, Roberts, Ruutu, etc. So what does the franchise do in anticipation of this? Keep cheap, viable NHL talent to softwn the blow? No, they trade it away for a rental player in a season in which the East was so limp they likely could have won it without said rental player. Slappy keeps going, "Oh, those players aren't as good as who we already have" never taking a second to look 14 months into the future and realize they're alot better then who you very likely will turn up having. That's why the Hossa trade is stupid, imo. It's a Carolina Hurricanes or Tampa Bay Lightning trade, and we've seen what happens after those teams got their one cup run in.
but armstrong and christensen are restricted free agents after next season anyway. if they are valuable players on a conference championship team, they will be overvalued just like malone, ruutu, orpik ect will be next year. go for broke this year, then resign malkin/staal/maf.

its kind of hard to see how the future of the cap will shake out, but it looks like teams in the nhl are going to spend big on stars, and role players will get screwed. role players will come to teams that they will look good on so they can get robbie brown/john cullen contracts
Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
but armstrong and christensen are restricted free agents after next season anyway. if they are valuable players on a conference championship team, they will be overvalued just like malone, ruutu, orpik ect will be next year. go for broke this year, then resign malkin/staal/maf.
The bidding is never as furious for RFAs as UFAs. If someone would, hypothetically, sign Armstrong or Christensen away for 3+ million deals, you realize the draft picks the Pens would get back in return? At least you're getting something back then.
of course they would get something. i cant see those guys getting long deals and the other free agents they have other than the big 3 not getting deals. plus the hossa trade kept him off of the habs, which at the time looked important. i agree that its a pretty dangerous trade, but if they cant win a cup with hossa and malone, i cant see them winning one with armstrong and christensen, even if they could have kept them
LETS GO REDWANKS…LETS GO REDWANKS…LETS GO REDWANKS!!!
Originally posted by Julian, certified WEBLEBRITY:
Slappy keeps going, "Oh, those players aren't as good as who we already have" never taking a second to look 14 months into the future and realize they're alot better then who you very likely will turn up having. That's why the Hossa trade is stupid, imo.
You've utterly disgraced me.

I'm not a Pen-tard, therefore, I would've never said the Hossa trade was smart.

Well, it was smart if they wanted to go deep this year and be content getting knocked out in the first round for the foreseeable future.

Resigning Beech should be their first priority in the off season. :D
Originally posted by slappy:
You've utterly disgraced me.

I'm not a Pen-tard, therefore, I would've never said the Hossa trade was smart.
Sorry, the on-going cacophony between yourself and I'm Her Slave have blended the two of you into one person in my feeble mind.
Got game 5 tickets. $230 per. Ouch.
thats it? honestly i would have thought more
Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
thats it? honestly i would have thought more
Upstairs, in-the-corner. Best I could get.
i was guessing you were going to spend $1500.00 on tickets for those two games
Originally posted by god's shoeshine:
i was guessing you were going to spend $1500.00 on tickets for those two games
If I was buying scalped seats, it probably would go that high.

Pittsburgh is going to be even harder to get tickets to since Mellon Arena isn't that big. Still, I think all the Wings tickets sold out almost instantly. I had to submit my order like 20 times before it found tickets, so I got really lucky.
Originally posted by Julian, certified WEBLEBRITY:
I pray nightly for a Wings/Pens final. If the Pens can win a single game it'd be one of the most shocking accomplishments in hockey history.
God listens to you Julian.

Now I'm going to pray for "one of the most shocking accomplishments in hockey history."
right, they only have 1,000 tickets available too. kind of assumed you were getting scalped tickets, though
$230 face/ticket, for the crappiest seat in the arena?!?

wow.
Originally posted by sweetcell:
$230 a ticket, for the crappiest seat in the arena?!?
The very top 2-3 rows of seats are like $130 and standing room only tickets are $99.
Originally posted by Julian, certified WEBLEBRITY:
Originally posted by sweetcell:
$230 a ticket, for the crappiest seat in the arena?!?
The very top 2-3 rows of seats are like $130 and standing room only tickets are $99.
Is Hockeytown Cafe attached to the Joe? Wonder what the cover will be to get in.
No pre-game chatter?

Me - I'm just hoping that the Pens can even score a goal against this team. :D
Originally posted by i'm her slave:

Me - I'm just hoping that the Pens can even score a goal against this team. :D
Keep hoping, motherfucka!!

I feel like the weight of the world has been lifted off my shoulders. We can do this!!
no pre-game blah blah, but i was exchanging in-game text messages with jules… he had me in stitches. thanks for making the game that much more entertaining. the girlfriend totally wanted to meet you until she read that last one you sent :D

i'm hoping the pens simply had an off night, 'cause the powerplay and third period shots on goal they showed last night won't make for a long series.