I will agree - it is frustrating as a fan of hockey - who likes trades

I do believe that both WSH and PIT were involved

If this drags out past Friday I believe the few remaining teams will drop out and start looking elsewhere
- MTL1

Comments like these require a little reminder. Making trades a so wner of your fantasy football team is different than making trades in real life. A lot different. A real lot different.

When I trade players as fantasy football owner, I'm trading statistics, no more,no less.

Stan has a different job. He's asking a father to move his family. He knows which player shows up at 6:30 am the day after the season ends to start training for the next season. He knows which players are leaders, which are loyal, which are good teammates. Which can be happy in a 4th line role, which will quit on the team if put on the 4th line.

Blog comments are just fantasy. Stan has a real job.

Yeah Blackhawks fans know that feeling. I remember how empty the UC was before Kane and Toews arrived. Now everyone and anyone(even the majority who don't even know what icing is) are wearing Blackhawks gear in Chicago. Start winning and the fans will follow and show up.
- BravePackCats27

Except Arizona or Florida.

Funny thing is, the Hawks routinely sold out, without being on TV for a long, long, time, until a rough few years in the early 2000s.

Wow, thank you Oz and welcome!
- John Jaeckel

Habs are my team but I always come to read JJs blog. One of the best. Plus the fans base comments are also good read with some knowledge hockey fans. Sharp I feel would fit well in Montreal but I am worried about the return required and the cap impact.

Sale doesn't get the "record", but pitches well with a complete game. Sox actually rally to beat the Jays and Mark Beuhrle...

...4-2

Game time in 1:55

Gotta luv that....
- ArlingtonRob

My son went to the game...Sale is some pitcher.

No, I was asked not to publicize it so I won't. Basically he wanted something very specific as far as an assurance about his future, that would require the approval of ALL of the team's management.

If I were one of their owners, looking at their roster, and what they need, I would do it. They really have nothing to lose.

But they may be gun-shy because people, like this Fialkov guy, were immediately drawing (stupid) comparisons with the money they wasted on Bolland. Unfortunately, NHL front offices can be very beholden to the stupidity of fans (and media).

Because, yes, I think, and have thought that Patrick Sharp would be a nice add for the Panthers. And I thought (and now I know) Dale Tallon did too.

We'll see, might not be dead. FL might be thinking about Sharp's condition. Or Sharp is thinking about something. if I hear it is dead, I will let you all know.
- John Jaeckel

If it was always a possibility that Florida might be a trading partner for Sharp and Sharp wants some kind of reassurance before waiving the NTC to go there - please tell me why this contingency hasn't been handled before now. This is just asinine to be expected to believe that all of a sudden Sharp needs some kind of assurance that the Florida ownership has to approve and this is just now being taken care of (or not). This criticism is not directed at you JJ because you're merely reporting what you hear, but Stan and Sharp and Sharp's agent just realized - oops, gee we haven't gotten that Florida ownership assurance yet - can someone call them today and get that for us?

MERCY!

Comments like these require a little reminder. Making trades a so wner of your fantasy football team is different than making trades in real life. A lot different. A real lot different.

When I trade players as fantasy football owner, I'm trading statistics, no more,no less.

Stan has a different job. He's asking a father to move his family. He knows which player shows up at 6:30 am the day after the season ends to start training for the next season. He knows which players are leaders, which are loyal, which are good teammates. Which can be happy in a 4th line role, which will quit on the team if put on the 4th line.

Blog comments are just fantasy. Stan has a real job.
- Cmonalready

So true - well said

Wow... the game plan for the off season is in shambles. Saad deal falls apart and is now a Jacket. 10 and 29 are still here and 27 and 16 need signed. And we still need to lose about 8 million with a shrinking market. And now we may have to move CC just to un screw this mess...

We did well getting AA and Dano, but damn we need to lose some money and fast..
- z1990z

OMG
Back up the truck

27 and 16 will get signed
The Saad deal and why is well documented

Good deal for both teams ....no need to elaborate

Crawford will be the starter on "raise the banner night"

There is no mess

Comments like these require a little reminder. Making trades a so wner of your fantasy football team is different than making trades in real life. A lot different. A real lot different.

When I trade players as fantasy football owner, I'm trading statistics, no more,no less.

Stan has a different job. He's asking a father to move his family. He knows which player shows up at 6:30 am the day after the season ends to start training for the next season. He knows which players are leaders, which are loyal, which are good teammates. Which can be happy in a 4th line role, which will quit on the team if put on the 4th line.

Blog comments are just fantasy. Stan has a real job.
- Cmonalready

No! We want trades. Git 'er done Stan!

Bowman got greedy with sharp
2 legitimate trade candidates are no longer - Wsh and Pit looked elsewhere pretty quickly

He should've been moved right away - 5.9 is a massive number

Look for contracts coming back and retention now to get him out the door
- MTL1

What were the offers from Wsh and Pit?

So true - well said

- darkman

I will always hold Stan in high esteem if for no other reason than he stepped up to the plate and made the moves at the TDL that helped the Hawks win this season. It took cajones to trade a 1st and a couple 2nd rounders but he did it and it paid off. I think he's done other good moves too and I hope he remains GM of the Hawks for the foreseeable future ... but there was already one time when he overplayed his hand or didn't play it correctly and that was with Leddy last summer. And it looks like he did the same thing with Sharp this summer. We'll see what the trade eventually is (and hopefully the delay doesn't cost Oduya and Kruger) - but no one is going to convince me that whatever it ends up being isn't equal or worse than he could have gotten before or at the draft.

No! We want trades. Git 'er done Stan!
- HawkintheD

Red Font = Sarcasm, which makes this funny. I'm learning.

What were the offers from Wsh and Pit?
- Dunconn_Smythe

LeBrun of TSN/ESPN confirmed Wsh was interested in sharp and had talks prior to the oshie deal
But the first-round pick, an "A-level prospect" and a top-6 forward on an entry-level deal was too much
Lebrun didn't mention which players Chicago wanted from Washington

That's understandable
I've seen the TV market demos - I believe both are in the top 15

You understand from a Canadian standpoint it kills us knowing those cities have teams when we could put 2 more teams in the Toronto area and each of those buildings would be packed each night
- MTL1

The Maple Leafs let another team come into the city and another in Hamilton...they are theproblem not an American takeover.

Besides Quebec City and Toronto there are no citiies as big as all those American market...

LeBrun of TSN/ESPN confirmed Wsh was interested in sharp and had talks prior to the oshie deal
But the first-round pick, an "A-level prospect" and a top-6 forward on an entry-level deal was too much
Lebrun didn't mention which players Chicago wanted from Washington
- MTL1

Why would anyone with a modicum of sense think that a 33 year old making $5.9M coming off the worst season is many years is going to bring back that much in a trade. That's just idiotic. I get the start negotiations high strategy but then when it becomes painfully obvious that those demands are not based in reality, something different should have been done than whatever it was that the Hawks brain trust did.

Why would anyone with a modicum of sense think that a 33 year old making $5.9M coming off the worst season is many years is going to bring back that much in a trade. That's just idiotic. I get the start negotiations high strategy but then when it becomes painfully obvious that those demands are not based in reality, something different should have been done than whatever it was that the Hawks brain trust did.
- EbonyRaptor

Maybe the demands from Stan was for Saad not Sharp. It's obvious Stan knew ahead a time he was going to have to trade Saad at some point because of his demands and the possible offer sheets coming. Just a thought. Still believe the Hawks will be cap compliant and Sharp & Bickell will be gone by game one of the 2015-2016 season.

LeBrun of TSN/ESPN confirmed Wsh was interested in sharp and had talks prior to the oshie deal
But the first-round pick, an "A-level prospect" and a top-6 forward on an entry-level deal was too much
Lebrun didn't mention which players Chicago wanted from Washington
- MTL1

I thought you had some sort of actual knowledge, not just re-tweets.

Pretty sure, like someone else said the ask was a first round pick OR an A level prospect OR a top 6 forward on an entry level deal. Or, not and.

Liam Coughlin is a big kid that Mark Kelley know well as he is a big tough Boston kid who has played left wing in the BCHL and is going to Vermont in the Fall. He was a centre who eventually settled in on wing

This is a wait and see acquistion and the fact he is back in the NHL trying out tells me Crawford is going nowhere, that goalie Anders Nilsson was the goalie being discussed in trade talks...
He originally had committedd to Boston years back...they might have backed off.


http://www.caughtinsouthi...cterofmonth/liam-coughlin

I thought you had some sort of actual knowledge, not just re-tweets.

Pretty sure, like someone else said the ask was a first round pick OR an A level prospect OR a top 6 forward on an entry level deal. Or, not and.
- Dunconn_Smythe

Lebrun is on radio and tv here all the time
The ask was for all 3 pieces not just 1

What were the offers from Wsh and Pit?
- Dunconn_Smythe

Here's the truth - NOBODY, outside of the front office, knows for sure if there were deals from those teams. Everything else is hearsay and conjecture.

Lebrun is on radio and tv here all the time
The ask was for all 3 pieces not just 1
- MTL1

Maybe it's just me, but I doubt Stan is that out of touch with reality.

Except Arizona or Florida.

Funny thing is, the Hawks routinely sold out, without being on TV for a long, long, time, until a rough few years in the early 2000s.
- howiehandles

Actually the Hawks set the NHL per game attendance record the first year in the UC in 1995, but by the late 90's the team was brutal....The decline was brutal and lasted from the the late 90's, when you couldn't give season tickets away, for almost 10 years til Toews/Kane.

Here's the truth - NOBODY, outside of the front office, knows for sure if there were deals from those teams. Everything else is hearsay and conjecture.
- darkman

Kind of what I was getting at.

Liam Coughlin is a big kid that Mark Kelley know well as he is a big tough Boston kid who has played left wing in the BCHL and is going to Vermont in the Fall. He was a centre who eventually settled in on wing

This is a wait and see acquistion and the fact he is back in the NHL trying out tells me Crawford is going nowhere, that goalie Anders Nilsson was the goalie being discussed in trade talks...
He originally had committedd to Boston years back...they might have backed off.


http://www.caughtinsouthi...cterofmonth/liam-coughlin
- wiz1901

He's starting college hockey at 20?...Interesting.

Kind of what I was getting at.
- Dunconn_Smythe

I wish everyone else would get it.

Why would anyone with a modicum of sense think that a 33 year old making $5.9M coming off the worst season is many years is going to bring back that much in a trade. That's just idiotic. I get the start negotiations high strategy but then when it becomes painfully obvious that those demands are not based in reality, something different should have been done than whatever it was that the Hawks brain trust did.
- EbonyRaptor

Bowman could ask for whatever but I have to believe Sharp's NTC and/or no movement clause really limits what Bowman can do with him or even Crawford for that matter, some say deals were in place but does that mean Sharp agreed with them, I'm sure they saw the Kesler deal last year and the Ducks really didn't give anybody up for him. The Hawks tried to trade for him but the only way that would work is if a salary went back the other way The only time the Hawks would have leverage would be prior to the trade dead line and considering how well they do their home work I find it very very very hard to believe if they had no salary coming back they would've made the deal.