acquiring lindholm just to have him play on the bottom pair? or is this like a 2A 2B 2C pairing system

I messed that up. He's 2LD.

Pelech-Pulock
Lindholm-Mayfield
Greene-Dobson

Yup

Chara isn't even a short* term solution lol

*bad pun intended

I think if NYI can land Lindholm and add an upgrade on Parise or Bailey to boost the forward core, They are gonna win it all.

It's funny how barry trotz publicly called a 21 year old mattias Ekholm "horrible, just horrible" (I watched that game and he was fine) but chara when is playing horrible gets his inadequacies politely hinted at
🧐🤨😠

One isn't a league wide respected HOFer lol

I saw Peter Baugh (Avs beat writer at The Athletic) reported Samuel Girard left the practice, and no word on why, yet. Trade incoming for Josh Bailey, 1v1. 😉

Do you follow NRD? He mentioned Girard on his podcast today. Said the Isles make sense but it's too early to know for sure

Yeah, I have listened to previous episodes and followed him for a while… but haven’t listened today. Could you do a short recap of what he said?

45:20 if you want to listen. It's very brief.

Basically Girard is an expendable, tradeable asset because of Byram. NRD said Isles make sense. Not sure if they've explored it yet but the pipeline is there with the prior Toews trade. But it's still too early to determine specific fit/player/team. Speculatively it makes sense for Isles though. His term remaining $5x6 is a nice bonus

Just saw this from Mike Chamber from the Denver Post: ”I believe Sam Girard was the big piece in the efforts to get Jack Eichel here and I still think Girard is going to get traded, I think the Avs want a forward for him and they want to lose his $5M long term cap hit.”

”They were highly unhappy with how Sam Girard played in the 2nd RD series against Vegas, his turnovers, he didn’t produce offensively, he was not good and I think that has lingered on into this season and primarily it’s Bo Byram that has showed the Avs that he’s better than Girard”.

Funny if Avs does the same mistake we did. Trading away Toews instead of Leddy. I’m a little afraid of a one for one involving Beauvillier for him.

Yeah not a Trotz player unfortunately, but he’s exactly what we need. Elite at so many things we desperately need. + our pp would instantly become so much better. His age and contract are so good too… Avs would probably demand Beau or nothing unfortunately.. Josh Bailey+++ would be a dream.

They would not trade Beauvillier for an undersized defenseman lol - obviously Girard is great , but it’s pretty clear by now that the organization considers Beau close to untouchable

I can see Raty , Bolduc , 1st + 2nd. Then Colorado uses those picks for a forward

No I don’t think so either, just meant I’m afraid of that scenario, but you’re right. Guess I’m still a bit traumatized after the Toews trade lol. A package of picks and prospects would be great imo, but I’m not sure Lou and Trotz even want him…

Girard is good defensively but he’s 5’10 170 lol - He’d be a great fit on the isles, but I agree they wouldn’t want him. Also something to note about Lou, he’ll never trade players mid season who are playing well, even if it’s for a slight upgrade. He’s big on chemistry. Our best lines this season are the 2nd and 3rd lines, safe to say no one from those two lines are going anywhere. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Bailey traded though.

Btw I think Lou is still traumatized by that Toews trade 😂 - he said a bunch of times in interviews that he regrets it and he wouldn’t let it happen again (trading an RFA for picks)

Imagine the known analytical GM Joe Sakic trading analytical darling Samuel Girard with the oldest, old school GM in Lou for an overvalued 30+ forward on a down trajectory, would be hilarious and a fictional scenario of course.

The recent moves and the rumours about Lou acknowledging Chára’s a problem going forward and probably not trusting Salo just yet, is even more curious to think about with Boychuk and Komarov’s contracts both gone for nothing (amazing) in such a short time. Sure they both could of just been lucky coincidents, but thinking of how good Metro is and how far it is to the trade deadline and how it takes time to adjust to the Trotz system, maybe gets Lou to act sooner rather than later. He’s got the capspace now. Question is who’s actually available this early in the season.

Soucy, Gostisbehere, Kulak, Dermott, Lindholm (doubt it), Girard (?), Chiarot (ugh), McNabb… someone else?

Haha yeah and that made him reopen Robidas Island, he’s been so good at managing the cap for us this offseason. This is his best year as GM for us and it’s not even close, it’ll be interesting to see if they can give him the Jim Gregory Award for a 3rd straight year, especially now when he actually deserves it the most haha.

The only thing I wish he did was try to keep Eberle and get rid of Bailey, but Eberle gone means Wahlstrom has a clearer path to the top line so I guess it will work out in the end.

I haven’t seen anything about not trusting Salo, if anything I think he gets called up sooner than later.

Lou has done a good job identifying the teams issues and trading for the right players, I can guarantee a guy like Chiarot will not be coming to LI. If I had to bet on it I think Dermott is the guy he’ll trade for , Lou is familiar with him, he’s cheap and he’s had an incredible start to the season. Solid puck mover + good defensively.

Yes of course, Lou should have protected Eberle instead of Clutterbuck and Seattle maybe would have picked Bailey instead. I remember some of the old school hockey Twitter was shocked to see a proven, veteran, leader, PO perfomer Josh Bailey being available, I even remember 32 Thoughts stated Seattle had to pick Bailey…

No but I think Salo really have to force their hand to call him up anytime soon, I hope I’m wrong ofc. - but it took an injury to Hickey for Toews to be called up in Trotz’ first season, even if Chára’s way worse than Hickey was back then, but Toews was dominant at the AHL level and it still took more time than it should imo. He was coming of an injury, so that’s maybe way it took longer too if i recall it correctly..

It’s concerning Aho hasn’t been given one single game considering the back-to-backs and with Chára being so bad. Even more strange considering their rough travel.

Toews injury was the reason why, I didnt agree with it but that’s why he was in BPT to start the season. Salo has been by far the best D in BPT and I personally think he’s too good for the league, it’s getting to the point where he’s wasted down there. So I do think he’ll get called up sooner than later. If he doesn’t, that’s straight up incompetence by the isles.

Trotz has never liked Aho, nothing new

I agree and hope you’re right. Re Aho it’s obvious he’s not a Trotz guy, but he’s still here and they chose to not sign Gustafsson bc of him. I get Lou don’t want to lose an asset for free, but having him just sit in the stands for 2 years is weird. Especially when Chára’s been this bad. Give him 3-5 games atleast and then end it permanently if Trotz still feels the same about him. Painful to see a player just sit out in crucial years of his career. If I was him I would try to do a Sami Niku.