OffThePost.org

A while ago, some genius said

Lots of reports are that Cizikas' deal is in fact $2.5M x 6 years. Longer term I'd like to see given to a 30 year old who plays a very physical game, but he supposedly turned down an offer from Seattle for almost twice the dollar amount, so loyalty gets rewarded.

Reports now saying Beauviller got $4.1M x 3 years, so a hair higher than I wrote above, but like I said, around $ million.

And just saw Panotta reporting that Pamieri's deal is $5M x 4 years. A full million more than I'd assumed.

Edit- Sorokin's deal is $4M x 3 years. Full million off there too. I thought I was doing really well with my predictions.

Pelech's contract is $5.75M x 8 years. I didn't expect him to want the 8 years, but it could prove to be a huge bargain down the road if the cap goes up and D-men keep getting huge contracts, so I'm not too unhappy that it's more than I thought it would be, other than my pride being slightly hurt.

Hoping to hear about Pamieri, Parise and Sorokin soon. Dal Colle- maybe he still gets signed but they didn't qualify him, so it would be lower than the $1 million I presumed, although not enough to make up for my Pelech gaff.


Assuming all the above is correct, and that Parise is also signed (since there aren't any rumors about him with another team), the Isles have almost no cap space. They are currently at $85,229,188, with a cap of $81.5. But they can spend up to $87.5 with Boychuk's LTIR relief, so they've got like $2.25 million in space for Parise and/or Dal Colle. Obviously Dal Colle isn't getting anywhere near that total since they didn't give him a QO that would have raised his pay to $770k. Also, for any trades. So I seriously doubt Tarasenko is coming to the Isles, even if Lou can send Komarov somewhere.

Isles signed Erik Gustafsson to a PTO. Poor man's Nick Leddy?

Yeah, Gustafsson is really talented and skilled, but defensively dude is a complete mess. Playing on the Blackhawks, those defensive miscues were magnified, and then playing with the Flyers, they REALLY were magnified (there was an Isles/Flyers game, can't recall when, but Gustafsson got absolutely clowned by Cizikas coming out of the corner, and Gus looked rather casual with his defense as Erik alluded to, I believe that game was an insane blowout of some sort, the Flyers had a few of those).

Turns out he was a great fit for Montreal since they're relatively good with the puck and defensively made up for any shortcomings he had, he was just able to provide some puckmoving ability from the back end on a team that really didn't have much to begin with. The Isles are a pretty tight defensive bunch so he could conceivably fit with them, but I think if he has one major brain fart or looks like he's dogging it on a given shift, Trotz will literally throw him into the press box and never let him out.

One guy who won't be back: Zajac. He retired.

Just learned the Isles' new digs won't be ready until November, so they'll start the season with the longest road trip in NHL history (13 games).