I now assume Ulf will be back and maybe he told Stan to bring them back because he likes their potential. It money just doesn't make sense.
- scott.jackson

Like it or not, bye-bye Connor Murphy will be one of the results of today's foolish overspend on these 2. What's next, a long term deal for Clendening?

Like it or not, bye-bye Connor Murphy will be one of the results of today's foolish overspend on these 2. What's next, a long term deal for Clendening?
- RickJ

We can only hope!

Like it or not, bye-bye Connor Murphy will be one of the results of today's foolish overspend on these 2. What's next, a long term deal for Clendening?
- RickJ

Bowman had to sign them now because the KHL was gunna come calling for both Rutta and Gustafson...his adopted son Rundblad currently starring for SKA St Petersburg. That's my point Rick, what other NHL GM would take two key players on one of the NHL's weakest blue lines and resign them for inflated extensions in March??? Bowman NEEDS to be fired ASAP.

Bowman had to sign them now because the KHL was gunna come calling for both Rutta and Gustafson...his adopted son Rundblad currently starring for SKA St Petersburg. That's my point Rick, what other NHL GM would take two key players on one of the NHL's weakest blue lines and resign them for inflated extensions in March??? Bowman NEEDS to be fired ASAP.
- EnzoD

Bowman has just begun his 10 year re-build...cut the guy some slack.

I now assume Ulf will be back and maybe he told Stan to bring them back because he likes their potential. It money just doesn't make sense.
- scott.jackson

Makes sense. I'm not completely against bringing either one back, but the numbers a baffling.

Bowman has just begun his 10 year re-build...cut the guy some slack.
- DarthKane

In all honestly DK, these signing tell me one of two things....1) Bowman is an awful evaluator of talent in defenseman and cannot see the flaws in both Rutta and Gustafson defensively in physical battles OR 2) Bowman and Co realize this team is dogpoop and are going to trot out the same roster again next year to get another Lottery pick.

Either way, as a fan it's pretty awful. Rutta I liked more than Gustafson early, but post concussion Rutta has been tentative and he is another non-physical dman. What has he done to double his salary? Same for Gustafson? Was there really going to be a big bidding war for these 2 key cogs on the Central Division's last place team??? Highly doubtful.

I still strongly advocate for John Moore signing. De Haan is intriguing as well. I just hope a clear plan takes shape soon bc I don't see how next year can be viewed as anything other than another #Tank by bringing back a nearly identical roster.....

In all honestly DK, these signing tell me one of two things....1) Bowman is an awful evaluator of talent in defenseman and cannot see the flaws in both Rutta and Gustafson defensively in physical battles OR 2) Bowman and Co realize this team is dogpoop and are going to trot out the same roster again next year to get another Lottery pick.

Either way, as a fan it's pretty awful. Rutta I liked more than Gustafson early, but post concussion Rutta has been tentative and he is another non-physical dman. What has he done to double his salary? Same for Gustafson? Was there really going to be a big bidding war for these 2 key cogs on the Central Division's last place team??? Highly doubtful.

I still strongly advocate for John Moore signing. De Haan is intriguing as well. I just hope a clear plan takes shape soon bc I don't see how next year can be viewed as anything other than another #Tank by bringing back a nearly identical roster.....
- EnzoD

I can't even begin to rationalize these two signings. I can only hope there is more to Stan's vision that will be unveiled during the off-season.

Bowman had to sign them now because the KHL was gunna come calling for both Rutta and Gustafson...his adopted son Rundblad currently starring for SKA St Petersburg. That's my point Rick, what other NHL GM would take two key players on one of the NHL's weakest blue lines and resign them for inflated extensions in March??? Bowman NEEDS to be fired ASAP.
- EnzoD

I pretty much keep my mouth shut when the flavour of the day on here is to hammer Q for all the things wrong with how this team is playing. Now everybody can see for themselves that he actually signed up to turn Bowman's chicken sh$t into a tasty chicken salad and he's failing miserably at it.

It's absurd what Bowman seems to get away with in his role as GM. I'm just waiting for how much money he is going to throw at that useless POS Anthony Duclair.

Like I said a couple of weeks ago, Hawks won't make the playoffs for at least 2 more years and only when Rocky brings in a hockey guy as the GM to clean up the mess this idiot bean counter has created.

In all honestly DK, these signing tell me one of two things....1) Bowman is an awful evaluator of talent in defenseman and cannot see the flaws in both Rutta and Gustafson defensively in physical battles OR 2) Bowman and Co realize this team is dogpoop and are going to trot out the same roster again next year to get another Lottery pick.

Either way, as a fan it's pretty awful. Rutta I liked more than Gustafson early, but post concussion Rutta has been tentative and he is another non-physical dman. What has he done to double his salary? Same for Gustafson? Was there really going to be a big bidding war for these 2 key cogs on the Central Division's last place team??? Highly doubtful.

I still strongly advocate for John Moore signing. De Haan is intriguing as well. I just hope a clear plan takes shape soon bc I don't see how next year can be viewed as anything other than another #Tank by bringing back a nearly identical roster.....
- EnzoD

I would think - or, maybe better, hope - that Stan isn’t doing these contracts in isolation - that he is listening to talent evaluators on the payroll (including the coaching staff and scouts) and is part of, not entirely and solely, the process.

You guys are waaaay too negative.

We still have cap space to sign Rosival to a $5M deal!!!!!!

You should just become a Blue jacket fan and stop getting so upset about the trade.
- GPHawksfan

The trade is the symptom of the problem. Bowman is the problem IMO. The reason Panarin comes up so often is because that other poster dogs every one of my posts about this deal. I let it go on long enough. I'm finally calling out his constant BS. I intend to see if he has any credibility or if it's all hat and no cattle.

You guys are waaaay too negative.

We still have cap space to sign Rosival to a $5M deal!!!!!!
- phantasmo

So if the cap does go up to 82 mill we had roughly 14 mil before rutta now 12 not including hossa money which we never used except for sharp and franson great decisions by our gm again. So with 12 mill and have to sign what 4 or 5 rfa which hopefully only be between 3vand 4 mil we will have 8 million to sign 2 NHL d men 2 physical wingers another center and power forward yea with our gm that gives away money like candy not likely hawks be seeing the playoff soon

Bowman had to sign them now because the KHL was gunna come calling for both Rutta and Gustafson...his adopted son Rundblad currently starring for SKA St Petersburg. That's my point Rick, what other NHL GM would take two key players on one of the NHL's weakest blue lines and resign them for inflated extensions in March??? Bowman NEEDS to be fired ASAP.
- EnzoD

BTW Enzo - Panarin is 12th in the league in scoring...how does Stan continue to have a job?

meanwhile everyone is excited about getting rid of DuClair who's only here because Stan overpaid yet another FA in Panik and then found a taker (hard to believe) for the flavor of the month. Panik and his agent couldn't believe it last spring when Stan offered that much...

One can only wonder what happens if Crawford is unable to go in the Fall. And why didn't they shut him down and take a bad contract with picks at the TDL? Who knows...

Tonight we get to see the Hawks farm team Carolina or is it vice versa...? Tonight we get to see TT - who Stan had to include in the Bickell salary dump (another overpay based on one playoff run) even though he could have bought Bicks out starting in the summer of 15...the Bowman trainwreck continues...

The only logic I can think of with this is that they're going to flip Ruutta and or Gustafson at the draft because now they have some (not much) term.

Only problem with this thinking is that most GMs probably look at those deals and say 'yeah I could've had him at less AAV, why on earth did you give him x?'

Stan likely made them less valuable by giving them these deals, unless one of them really sticks out the last handful of games.
- ObeseOprah

maybe retaining 50%...

maybe retaining 50%...

- bogiedoc

Hey Bogie...hope you're well sir. Trying to get excited about Bears Free Agency with our Hawks where they are...

Personally I'd rather hang onto Rutta...thought he and Forsling played decently for a bit there early mid season...but a lot of work needed.

The trade is the symptom of the problem. Bowman is the problem IMO. The reason Panarin comes up so often is because that other poster dogs every one of my posts about this deal. I let it go on long enough. I'm finally calling out his constant BS. I intend to see if he has any credibility or if it's all hat and no cattle.
- Savoy

So you call out his BS moves. What does that accomplish? He doesn't report to you or even read stuff like this on the internet. I just don't get the constant complaining and whining on here about every little thing.

So you call out his BS moves. What does that accomplish? He doesn't report to you or even read stuff like this on the internet. I just don't get the constant complaining and whining on here about every little thing.
- GPHawksfan

... its a discussion board. Where ideas are discussed... about the team we all (mostly) really like. When the management, coaching, players do something that we think is foolish (or close to criminal) there are going to be a lot of comments about it. Otherwise this becomes a meditation board, and that's not fun for anyone.

We can only hope!
- DarthKane

At least he [Clendenning] would be an upgrade over Keith on Pp

[quote=Justin Lowe]Hey guys - I didn't have anything to do with Wiz being temporarily banned.

I actually didn't even know anything about it until Wiz messaged me.

I reached out right away to the heads of HB to see what was up and the reason was because users were complaining about Wiz promoting his site on here.


I told them I was ok with it but it was out of my hands from


And obviously JJ is banned as well? Not that he 'ADVERTISED' his new site but one could argue that he did not discourage .JJ moved on and did not try to take the masses but offered only more point of view.To think that Wiz is banned because he promotes his great draft website is a joke.There was a reason that John Jaekael and hockeybuzz allowed Wiz to post his view point in the past so what has changed?

Bowman has just begun his 10 year re-build...cut the guy some slack.
- DarthKane

I'm okay with both signings, free agency imho for defenseman are garbage, besides if we got a 3rd for Kempny, They don't work out you have 2 3rd round picks in 2019

I'm okay with both signings, free agency imho for defenseman are garbage, besides if we got a 3rd for Kempny, They don't work out you have 2 3rd round picks in 2019
- BetweenTheDots

That might be part of the plan. When Rutta is on, he is worth it, they just need him to have more consistency because when he is off, he had some bad games.

Uh oh hopefully Bowman doesn't sign Jurco to big money now

You know to me both Rutta and Gusto show flashes of being good defenseman, as you say B consistency is key

That might be part of the plan. When Rutta is on, he is worth it, they just need him to have more consistency because when he is off, he had some bad games.
- breadbag

Feel like we could say that about ever single player this year. Such a hard year to use to judge the players.

Nice goal Murphy