Wanna blog? Start your own hockey blog with My HockeyBuzz. Register for free today!
 

On Doan, Briere, and Beating Up The Bruins

August 4, 2012, 9:20 PM ET [514 Comments]
GARTH'S CORNER
NHL news by Garth • RSSArchiveCONTACT
According to csncalifornia.com's Kevin Kurz, Shane Doan has hit a firewall with the San Jose Sharks.

Doan wants to stay put in the desert. However, he may have to pull a Baltimore Colts-like exit strategy if/when the Janison group fails to raise the requisite $170 million to buy the Phoenix Coyotes from the NHL.

According to Kurz:


An NHL source has informed CSNCalifornia.com that if those demands are true, the Sharks will not be among his suitors, and that San Jose will not offer more than a three-year deal for approximately $4.5 million a season.

Still, if Doan wants to remain close to Phoenix without actually playing there, his options could be limited. San Jose and Vancouver are the only Western Conference teams said to be pursuing Doan, along with Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York and Buffalo in the East.



________________________________________________________________


You wanna know why I absolutely respect my friend, and coach, Tim Panaccio?

The guy tells it like is. No Splenda. No sugar-coating. No B.S. The man speaks his mind. You don't like what he has to say? Go pound salt.

Panotch, in my opinion, hits the nail on the head with his assessment of why the Flyers do not need Bobby Ryan right now.

Disclaimer:"Need" is a lot different than 'want".

Do the Flyers and their fans WANT to trade for the South Jersey sniper? Of course they do. It goes without saying that Ed Snider, Bobby Clarke, Paul Holmgren, Peter Laviolette and 6 million Flyer fanatics would LOVE to make a trade with Anaheim to get Ryan in orange and black for the next decade.

However, do the Flyers NEED another winger/forward right now?

No. The Flyers NEED another top four Dman, or two (insert Andrej Sekera's name here).

Pronger's career appears to be done. Matt Carle was signed to a fat free agent deal by Tampa. Andrej Meszaros is recovering from offseason back surgery. Kimmo Timonen is 37 years old and is showing signs of rust and dust on his game. Nik Grossman is a solid D, when healthy. Braydon Coburn provides solid play and plays a distinctly physical role, however, he's no Shea Weber, Duncan Keith, Brent Seabrook, or Keith Yandle. Coburn is what he is. He's not a 25+ minute D. The Flyers traded JVR for Luke Schenn, who will be a solid fifth D. They also signed Bruno Gervais who will battle with Andreas Lilja for the sixth and seventh slot.

Listen to Panotch break it down for you in his own inimitable fashion.


thanks, csnphilly.com

I happen to agree with mi professore. The Flyers should skate away from Ryan and start looking for veteran muscle and skill that will infuse instant credibility into the Flyers back end.

Holmgen cork-screwed himself into the ground in July when he took two mighty swings at D monsters, Shea Weber and Ryan Suter. Two swings, two misses. Missing out on Zach Parise and Rick Nash served as peroxide on an open road rash wound.

The Sabres are sitting on a stock pile of capable, quality NHL D. Sekera (three seasons and $2.75 million per copy) and Leopold (one year and $3 million) jump to mind readily as they have reasonable term and money left on their present contracts.

Imagine if you will, a scenario where Buffalo hook up in a trade to help one another. Imagine Sekera and Leopold to Philly, in exchange for some guy named Danny Briere.

The Sabres are thick on their NHL blueline, having 8 quality D to play 6 spots. Myers, Ehrhoff, Regehr, Leopold, Sulzer, Weber, McNabb, and Pardy, The Amerks are loaded too, with Brennan, Pysyk, Leduc-Gauthier, and Finley waiting for their chance to play with the big boys.

The Flyers are loaded down the middle with Giroux, Briere, Schenn, Couturier, and Talbot. They have five quality centreman. They also have promising pivot Ben Holmstrom on the come. Prospect Nick Cousins is intriguing to Flyers management.

Philly's area of strength is Buffalo area of weakness. The Flyers are depleted at D, while the Sabres are over-loaded.

What the world needs now, is love, sweet love.


I propose that we the citizens of Pegulaville bury the hatchet with the Flyers. Keep your friends close. Keep your enemies closer.

The Sabres could use a Briere-type of top line centre who can play against the other team's top line and play special teams. The veteran centre would also act as mentor to Ennis, Hodgson, Grigorenko, and Girgensons. Briere knows the Lindy Ruff system like the back of his hand. Hell, he played the D-first system like a Steinway piano, to the point where he thrived by posting huge offensive numbers. Another thing that Briere has going for him is the fact that he Ville Leino thrived while playing with #48 in Philly. What's more, Briere has three seasons left on his deal. He's a paltry $6.5 million cap hit for those three seasons. Say what you want about Briere. Like him or not, you cannot argue with his body of work. He was a great point producer in Buffalo. He hasn't lagged since signing in Philly.

Briere has played 330 games in Philly. He has generated 267 points in his first five seasons. He's showing no signs of slowing down as he grows older. Injuries notwithstanding, Briere still holds his offensive value.

Briere has blown up in the postseason for the Flyers, where he has scored 72 points in 68 playoff games. 72 points in 68 games? Thats just stupid!

He has scored 37 playoff goals, including several death blows to the Sabres, in his past five seasons in Philly.

There's no denying that Briere has been money in the bank.





Which centre would you be more inclined to invest $6.5 million in per season? Briere? Stastny?

When the Flyers signed Briere to his monster 8 year deal back in July 2007, snickers and jeers could be heard across the hockey landscape. The critics moaned and groaned about the fact that Briere was nowhere near worthy of such a lucrative contract. He's quietly proved the cynics wrong. The Flyers have been to two eastern Conference Finals in the past three years. Briere's fingerprints are all over the recent success that the Flyers are experiencing. He will be 37 in year 8 of this deal. Briere is entering year 6, and is still very productive, on both sides of the puck. Is he a 100 point centre? No. Can he get you 70-80 points, and more importantly, improve the scoring efficiency on the PP? Yes, he most definitely can.

Before you scoff at the idea of Briere returning to Buffalo, hold that thought. Danny was content to stay in Buffalo, however, when the NHL arbitrator awarded him the $5 million one year ruling in 2006, the Golisano era Sabres were not going to pay Briere $5+ million on a long term deal. The Golisano-led Sabres were a middle of the pack, revenue sharing team, with tight budget constraints. Its the polar 180 opposite paradigm for the Pegula owned Sabres.

Maybe the Sabres don't need Doan, Ryan, or Stastny afterall. Briere may be the prescription to heal all that ills the Sabres.

All things old can be new again.


Think about it. I know Ville Leino is.




_______________________________________________________________________

Meet my new favorite hard rock band. The Red Hot Chilli Pipers!







Damn good stuff! Aye, mate!
_______________________________________________________________________



Circle September 26 on your calendar.

Its the night that the newly armoured Sabres roll into Chowd Nation to pound... errr.. play the Bruins in a rare Buffalo-Boston Exhibition hockey game.


Its being billed as a shinny, however, methinks that the knucks will be chucked early and often on that night.


Memo to Big John Scott, Nick Tarnasky, Steve Ott, Mike Weber, Marcus Foligno, Cody McCormick, Pat Kaleta, and Corey Tropp:


Stop into Sam's Club or Costco this week, and pick up the industrial sizes roll oif aluminum foil. You'll need it for your knuckles!

















I hope Chara, Lucic, Thornton, and the bruins have paid up their dental insurance premiums.




________________________________________________________________________


Caution:



If you are reading this and you are in your car, please pull over, so as not to wreck your car.

If you are standing, please sit down to avoid fainting and hitting your head on the end table.

*********** BREAKING NEWS****************


UFA Shane Doan has spoken.

Doan said Saturday that given his druthers, that its his first choice to re-up with the financially unstable Phoenix Coyotes.

Oh, the humanity. Stop the presses. Shane wishes to remain a member of a team that is presently owned by the NHL. A team whose prospective owner cannot afford the $170 million, non-negotiable asking price. One wonders: if Jamison is struggling to raise the $170 million to buy the team, how the Hell is he going to afford to cover his payroll and to pay his debt service once he owns the Coyotes?

I digress. TSN caught up with Doan at an autograph signing event in Georgetown, Ontario on Saturday.

Doan barred his soul and expressed his inner most desires to stay in Phoenix.



"Right now I'm doing everything I can to stay there and that's kind of my goal," Doan said in an interview with TSN. "At the same time, I'm having to do some due diligence, now in the fact that the longer it takes the more likely and the harder it seems to be to get a deal done in Phoenix"


Doan has a four year, $7.5 million unclaimed lottery ticket in the palm of his hockey glove. The Sabres want him badly. The Flyers, Rangers, and Canucks were able to sit face to face with him. The Sharks want him. The guy will likely end up signing for five years and 48 million per year. Phoenix is on the verge of re-locating to another NHL market, like Quebec City or Seattle. All of Doan's suitors are built on solid financial foundations. Yet, through it all, Doan steadfastly chooses to move his deck chair on the Titanic. Why look at the iceberg? Just turn your chair away and look in the opposite direction. Denial. its not just a river in Egypt.


"It's one of those things. that I understand the fluidity of the market and the way that the market moves, but like I said I'm going to try to give Phoenix every chance I can," Doan said.

"For me it's going to be about my family and the right situation for us and the right situation for me as a player to have a chance to win and enjoy the game. And I think that's a big part of it is being in the right spot and enjoying it. There's obviously a few teams that fit that."



(insety yawn here).

_____________________________________________________________________

When will it end? When will all of this Shane Doan lunacy end, for good? Just when you thought it was safe to conclude that the UFA winger would land in Vancouver, comes word out of Northern Califiornia that the San Jose Sharks have been secretly lurking, all the while tracking Shane Doan.

A source has told csnbayarea.com:


According to the source, the Sharks, who are generally very tight-lipped about personnel decisions, have flown “under the radar” in their pursuit of Doan. Doan reportedly met with the Vancouver Canucks on Tuesday, and has also drawn interest from the New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins and Buffalo Sabres. His preference is to remain in Phoenix, but the uncertain ownership situation there has led to him exploring other options. There are reports that Doan is seeking a four-year contract worth $30 million, averaging out to a $7.5 million cap hit. According to CapGeek.com, San Jose has approximately $5.57 million in cap space. Signing Doan, who has spent his entire 16-year career with the Winnipeg/Phoenix franchise, could mean the Sharks would have to subsequently shed salary elsewhere.


As we sit here on Saturday August 4, five weeks after the UFA market bell first sounded, Doan has attracted a ton of attention. Rightly so. Right now, the Sahraks have 20 player contracts signed for the 2012-13 season. The contracts total $64,629,167. Thus, the Sharks are trying to lure Doan with the remaining $5,570,833. Try as they might, the Sharks will not be buying Doan for pennies on the dollar. Ain't gonna happen. i was told earlier this week that the reported and conformed four year, $30 million deal for Doan that has been on the table for three weeks now, has been stepped up to five years and $8 million per. Its believed by many teams folks inside the NHL that the Sabres were the team that made the original $7.5 million annual salary offer for Doan.

Why would doan and his agent take a $2- $2.5 million haircut just to play for the Sharks. Its ludicrous to think that Doan would leave $2+ million on the table at this juncture in his career. He's about to sign he final contract of his storied career. he won't be leaving crumbs on the counter. Trust me on that one. He and his agent are going to squeze every last penny out of the team that eventually signs him to a lucrative UFA deal. That team, be it San Jose or Vancouver, will have to hope and pray that Doan stays healthy and that he can live up to the lofty expectations that accompany such a lucrative contract.

Signing Doan to a contract north of $7.5 million per season all but seals the fate of one or two present Shark players. Joe Thornton earn $7 million this season and next. Patrick Marleau will earn $6.9 million this season and next. D Dan Boyle will earn $6,666,667 million this season and next. Brent Burns will earn $5,760,000 for the next five seasons. Martin Havlat will be paid $5 million for the next three seasons. Joe Pavelski will be paid $4 million this season and next. Ryan Clowe is an interesting player in that he'll earn $3.625 million this season and he'll be UFA on 7/1/13.

Doan is a right winger, which is the weakest area on the Sharks roster. Havlat is their best option there right now. In theory, the Sharks could trade the enigmatic Havlat and his $5 million tab to another NHL squad. But honestly, who's looking for "Bootsie" havlat right now? talk about a guy who can't live up to his potential. He's moved from Ottawa to Minnesota to Chicago to San Jose. $5 million is a lot of escarole to be dishing out $5 million per copy for the next three seasons. Good luck with that.

The Sharks are a team that can use an influx of a lot of things. They've stiffed out of the playoffs on a consistent basis in the past few seasons. They've been Trazan in the regular seaosn and Jane in the postseason for far too many years in a row. Makes sense that their GM, Doug Wilson, would want to import more scoring and leadership from outside the family. Wilson and gead coach Todd McLellan survived the axe this past Spring when their team was unceremoniously bounced from the playoffs in the first round. It was widely rumoured for months that Wilson was in hot pursuit of disgruntled winger Rick Nash. The thought process was that Thornton and Nash played extremely well together in Davos during the last NHL work stoppage in 2005-06. The duo also played well together for team Canada at the 2010 Olympics. When the Rangers made the trade for Nash, it threw a huge monkey wrench in Wilson's master plan to acquire the scoring winger.

It makes total sense why he'd want Doan right now.

Wilson can't have Doan unless and until he subtracts heavy dollars off his cap. the only way he can do that is by trading away a high dollar veteran player. I've saying it loudly into my megaphone for the past few months: Joe Thronton would look quite dapper in Blue and Gold.Darcy Regier has been patient to this point in his pursuit of a veteran centreman. I thinks its time to push the pace and play the uptempo puck pursuit game as it pertains to trading for a veteran leader, who has proven that he can carry a team on his two broad shoulders. Imagine what type of tricks of the trade that Thornton could teach Buffalo's bevy of young centres in Ennis, Hodgson, Grigorenko, and Girgensons.

On locker clean out day, Thornton said that he still has "10 years left" in his legs. I believe him. Like a fine Napa Valley Merlot, Thornton seems to get better with age. The former first overall pick of the Boston Bruins in 1997, Thornton has been a consistent points producer and has excelled on special teams. Maybe its time for come home. He's a London boy. He'd be a par five away from his hometown. Maybe a change of scenery will do him good.


thanks, sharks.nhl.com


On December 1, 2005, San Jose sent forwards Marco Sturm and Wayne Primeau and defenseman Brad Stuart to the Bruins for Jumbo Joe.

Here's a trivia nugget for you:

Thornton played his first game as a Shark in Buffalo on December 2, 2005. The Sharks won the game 5-0. Thornton notched two assists in the win.


I'm all for Buffalo sending a package to the Sharks for Thornton. They are thin at right wing, so I'd include Jason Pominville ($5.3 million). They'd need a centre to replace Thornton, so I'd include Luke Adam ($875,000). If Wilson wants more sugar in his coffee, I'd include a second round pick for next season.





If the Doan to San Jose chatter is correct, Iand I hope that it is, then Mike Gillis and Doug Wilson will be MMA fighting for the same guy. Their intense battle will no doubt drive up Doan's value to the point where either GM will have to shed some serious money in order to get the deal done. Let the bidding war begin. Then, I hope that Montreal and Pittsburgh join into the fray and cause a four team donnybrook that results in a grossly over-inflated balloon of a UFA contract for Doan.

If I'm Darcy Regier, I jump to the front of the line and make a trade proposal for Jumbo Joe.


How about you?

Join the Discussion: » 514 Comments » Post New Comment
More from GARTH'S CORNER
» Hailing Taxis
» He With The Gold Makes The Rules
» Sedentary Seven
» The Sedentary Seven
» GadZuccs