The NHL trade deadline is Wednesday at 3pm eastern. That's only 4 days away and we have a few burning questions. Do we roll the dice and make a move for a big defenceman that may cost us some of our future or do we stand pat? Do we add another forward or was Matt Cullen our play in that regard? But the biggest question to me and I imagine most Sens fans is what do we do about Anton Volchenkov?Now I'm sure most of you are thinking, what do you mean what do we do? We keep him for the playoffs and see what happens, he'll end up signing I'm sure. That would be nice, but unfortunately we don't live in fanatsy land. With cap space being so important, you can't afford to overpay players and you can't afford to lose players for nothing as an UFA. It can kill a franchise.
Now here's where it gets tricky. Do we stand pat and risk losing him for nothing or do we realize we can't sign him or aren't willing to meet his salary demands and trade him to a contender. Think of what Volchenkov brings to the table. One of the league's best shotblockers, a gritty stay at home defenceman and a guy who will play with 2 broken legs if it's possible. Sounds like a great pickup for the playoff run to me for say Washington. I know it's not the best scenario and it would be awful to see A-Train go, but not thinking about trading him if we can't sign him is naive and plain stupid.
Bryan Murray has said he wants to sign him and I want him here, but at what price? At 4.5 million or more a year? Hell no! Is he a valuable player? Of course he is, but he isn't a star and never will be and he doesn't even have 100 career points in 7 seasons in the league. As they say, you can't pay defenceman who don't put up points big time money. It's just a bad call and can ruin your franchise.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Volchenkov and his agent are looking for bigger money then Murray thinks he's worth or they would have had a deal by now. It might be a bit hard to swallow, but if he wants big money, we have to trade him and get something back in return. It's just the way of the new NHL.
Hopefully they can get something done in the next few days and he remains a Sen for a long time at a reasonable, fair rate of pay. Something like 3.5 million a year for 5 years would be good for both sides, but we need to be realistic and his time may be coming to an end in Ottawa, that is if Murray has the guts to trade him and do what's best for the franchise long term.
The only worry I have is that Murray seems to love to overpay when resigning our own guys. See Neil, Fisher and Kelly contracts as proof. I don't know why but I have an awful feeling this won't end well, hopefully I'm very wrong.
Thoughts on my thoughts?
4 comments:
well put mayor. idont wanan lose him either but if we must we must do whats best for the team lng term
Why is Washington always seem to be the first place people think of when the idea of trading Volchenkov comes up? Why not just the highest bidder? Preferably in the Western Conference, do we want to play against Volchenkov in the playoffs?
i didnt mean that we SHOULD trade him to Washington.
I said the Caps because they are a contending team who have a weak defence and could use a shot blocker who plays through everything.
It was an example of a type of team that could use him thats all
I think only BM has to make the decision based on if he thinks we can resign him. We need a solid D back though, or something we can flip for a D. In terms of forwards I hope we are done. We gave up nothing for Cullen but I don't really think the Sens are good enough to give up what few prospects they have to make a run this year.
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