Racki:
HL: having just played you, I can give a piece of advice. I’m sure you know this already, but if not, you should be dressing every player you can fit into a given night. I noticed on Sunday you didn’t have everyone in the lineup. I think if you had everyone dressed sunday, you’d be close to stealing a couple stats which would. Don’t think it would have been enough, but if you had that same probably nightly, then maybe you would have made it 7-4 instead of 9-2 if you dressed everyone you could all the time.

It’s important to note that a player gets 0 points for you if he’s sitting on your bench. You might know that or forgot that.. or just didn’t realize that guys were on your bench. For me, I set my roster up a week ahead of time. When I make a trade or drop/add players, I redo the roster for the week because that will undo all changes. Then just every day or every other day I have a quick look to see if players are hurt or if I need to dress a different goalie or what have you.

‘yeah, I know. Thanks for checking though. I try to do my rosters in advance but when I get too busy I don’t do it. I didn’t play someone last night who ended up scoring, so that doesn’t help. *I didn’t realize that adding and dropping effs up the roster though and you have to re-do your picks – that’s probably been my downfall b/c I’ve made lots of changes.

Usually it’s not even close, if I would have dressed one guy who got one goal but I didn’t get the points b/c he was benched, I mean. Usually my opponent beats me by a much larger embarrassing margin anyway. I have 3 ducks on my roster, and they are garbage this year (except Selanne is ok). And Mike Richards hasn’t been playing that well. It’s Oiler luck it really is.

The sad part about all of this is that IMO a full rebuild should not have been necessary for this team. All those years before our cup run in 2006 where we year after year were forced to trade our best assets for picks and prospects basically netted us nothing and I have to ask why? I think it all boils down to poor prospect management. Those years of sharing or having no farm team at all have really dug this team into a big hole and is a major reason why this total rebuild is necessary.

I am so glad that the farm team has been fixed but it will take years for the fruits of that work to come to life for the big club. just imagine how much better shape we would be in if management did not treat the farm team like a neglected step child for the better part of the last decade……we would probably be a playoff team. Oh well that’s a shoulda, coulda woulda now.

As for what to do with our pick and how to upgrade the D. Well that’s a tough one. I think it all depends on where we finish in the lotto. If we get the first pick we take Nail 100% and move Hall to center and overpay in FA to get that defender. Anything other then the number 1 pick then we trade it.

It’s important to note that a player gets 0 points for you if he’s sitting on your bench. You might know that or forgot that.. or just didn’t realize that guys were on your bench. For me, I set my roster up a week ahead of time. When I make a trade or drop/add players, I redo the roster for the week because that will undo all changes. Then just every day or every other day I have a quick look to see if players are hurt or if I need to dress a different goalie or what have you.

Racki:
No, I wouldn’t trade Hall, Eberle or Nuge, but I think all 3 of those guys are top line talent. I have to ask.. how many top line, 1st overall picks should we amass? When do the returns start to diminish? You can only give out so many minutes to players. That said, I’d love to have Yakupov in the system, but I would not consider that a priority. When I ask myself, would I rather have another Hall/Ebs/Nuge, or would I rather have a Weber.. I very quickly say I’d rather have a Weber. As they say, defense wins championships. We’ve got the offensive talent… we need the two-way defender.

^ This. Yeah. 100%

As to your comment about teams maybe not willing to move players… that’s not something that Tambellini should be concerning himself with though. You make the offers… if they bite, they bite.. if they don’t.. well, no harm done. But how do you know if you don’t try? You can’t be passive and sit here thinking “well, they won’t want to move him”. There’s been a few guys that have moved in recent years that made me say “holy shit.. he was available?!?”. Why wait til July 1st if you can potentially get them between now and the deadline?

That’s a great point as well. You’ll never know if you don’t ask (variation on Gretz’ “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”)

Zack: Thanks for the write-up. Now stop kicking my ass in the pool. (that goes for everyone….d’oh) I blame YOU. Just jokin it’s my 1st yr as manager and I wasted some picks on a goalie. Rookie mistake.

Definitely though if I’m Tambellini I’m trying to do whatever I can to improve this team at the deadline more geared to competing soon rather than in a few seasons. We have established a young core but another player to that young code wouldn’t hurt either especially if it’s top five. I’d be in favor of moving the pick if it’s top five for the right deal but if it’s top to I’d say stay and I wouldn’t complain.