I was laughing at the article by some retard which makes it seem like Lou was a genius in this deal. Lou is a retard with the cap and just dumped a guy that was playing 23 minutes a night in the playoffs for them. He got back Panik who sucks and a late 2nd rounder in a weak ass draft. Please. Islanders will go with young Dobson. Good luck. We can tell you here what happens when you have to put out young defenseman in big games. They usually don't hold up. Experience with defenseman matters a lot.
Plus senile Lou took back 3.2 million in salary with Panik who blows and an extra year of a contract. Leddy's contract is up this year. I guarantee Yzerman trades him for a first rounder at the deadline this season. Basically, now that the Islanders will protect Mayfield, Pelich and Pulock, Seattle will take one of their 4th line players. I doubt they will take a bunch of second rounders in this weak draft.
Leddy is a whatever dman now, and will only trend down. They saved $4.125M (Wings retained 50% on Panik - so he did not take $3.2M back), and the Isles also got a 2nd. They have a lot of guys to re-sign. Good move by Lou. Once again you refuse to give Lou/the Isles any credit. They were the only team that was competitive against TB, they have a good solid team, and they just created over $4M of cap space to re-sign some of their players. Smart move for them.
I'm pretty sure you can use UFA's and RFA's to your advantage to protect more players. I think Cizikas is going to leave as a FA. He's going to get a 5 or 6 year offer from another team. This will be his last chance to get a big contract.
I saw that they were trying to move Eberle, but all in all it's not a bad deal for them getting cap off the books and getting a 2nd back with it. Not sure from Detroits perspective since they're in a rebuild but maybe a vet to help the young guys like Seider.
Lou has handed out several moronic contracts the past couple years. That's an enormous loss to their defense. They just got a lot easier to play against. Francis is no dummy. He's going to steal the best player he can from the Islanders. I also think he will be aggressive in FA. If Cizikas and his agent have a brain in their head they will go to free agency. I expect Colorado, Boston, Seattle, Toronto and Edmonton to all make significant offers.
Lou is horrible at handling the cap. He's had to trade first rounders multiple times to get rid of cap problems. Now he has to trade a top 4 defenseman for a crap return. I really think Buchnevich and Strome will be used in a deal to bring an elite center in. Rangers can actually move Strome, Buchnevich, Jones and prospect like Kravtsov for an elite young, proven center like Larkin and still be a better team. That's how much talent they have.
