if they take Blake, I’d give them Blake and Wiz for a pack of Marlboro Lights on a 3M cap hit.

they just straight added Scott Walker. where are they getting all this room to make moves. If it’s like that, we really should be trying to unload a forward on them for one of our defenseman. We technically dont’ need wiz at this point.

I feel like Sutton is more of an insurance policy because Volchenkov wants a raise. I think the Senators are legitimately trying to get a deal done with him. Depending on how big a raise he wants, I think it’s the kind of thing that could be had for what we paid for Ward, but only if the Sens are willing to give up on negotiations.

whitney and blake for kaberle, finger and a prospect. Everybody’s happy.

damn

we’re pretty thin at goaltender. MacDonald is a career AHLer, but maybe he can start in the minor leagues ahead of Cousineau and/or Pielmeier to ease their transition.

but he was the cheapest option available. In hindsight, I would’ve paid a second round pick for a Sutton, but Murray and Madden are making out the Ducks’ draft plan, not me. Maybe they’ve got something they can’t tamper with planned for this year. It would be nice to make more picks than LA in LA’s home draft.

though not very physical

I think that’s the problem. Visnovsky is basically what we hope Wisniewski could be, a smallish offensive specialist who can be smart with the puck, but that still leaves us without that physical defenseman. Maybe Volchenkov and the Sens wont’ see eye to eye, but until Murray actually spends more than 3M on a guy who plays defense, I can’t say he’s purchased an “answer.” Visnovsky gives us smart, responsible offense while getting rid of Whitney and making Wisniewski’s ask for a raise laughable, but it isn’t exactly what we were missing. We had plenty of offensive-defense; Lubo is just an ideal upgrade of the nonsense we were working with (and a quality replacement for Niedermayer in the long term), but the “answer” was a real shutdown guy.