As you probably know by now, Frédéric St-Denis signed a one year, two-way deal with the Montreal Canadiens yesterday.
Meanwhile, Raphael Diaz has also filed for salary arbitration with the team.
All of which leads me to a question, what do you do with the log-jam of puck moving, offensively minded blueliners?
After all, between St-Denis, Diaz, Kaberle and Weber, it feels like there are a lot of players cut from similar cloth here.
So, how would you deal with this logjam?
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4 comments:
You can never have enough NHL d-men.
Would be great to add another physical stay at home type.
If we can move Kaberle and get something useful then great. If not keep them all and carry 2 NHL d-men in Hamilton in case of injuries, so what if you they are on a one way NHL contract. They make their money and give us insurance.
Based on the last couple of years, we need to carry 9 NHL ready d-men plus our top prospects in Beaulieu, Tinordi & Ellis.
Would it be so bad to have Weber & Diaz in Hamilton?
@HH
Agreed, you can't have too many NHL d-men, but my concern is not with a logjam in quantity, but a logjam in style. Too many similar players.
Beyond that, Weber and (I suspect) Diaz are not waiver exempt next season, meaning you can't send them to Hamilton without risking losing them.
I hadn't thought of that scenario.
I guess we should probably carry 8 d-men again and if Diaz can't clear waivers then either he or Weber will need a new home.
We still need another physical stay at home type NHL d-man and I suspect we will be able to pick up one cheap later on but I hate giving up on young puck moving d-men.
Could always send Kaberle to Hamilton.....if someone claims him.....oh well.
To look at it from Diaz's perspective, I think he looks at all the defencemen around him and doesn't see much job security for himself. So he negotiates his contract aggressively and he either gets a good contract (and the commitment that implies) or is traded out to where he's needed. And there's always the KHL.
But I'd move him for a draft pick.
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