with teams like clb-pho-nash-flo-pitts etc etc etc all rebuilding allready and some in worse situations than any dispersal team. i know for fact some of these teams were looking to make big splash's on the free agent market, (i have noo cap space it wont be me ian) but now with a good chunk of the better ufa's who were avaible not avaible anymore these teams are going to be severely overpaying for Sami Salo level players will get 7-10 mill per yr deals just so teams can hit the salary floor now that a good chunk of the top end UFA's are off the market... i think it will hurt the competiveness of the league by having these teams HAVE to crushingly overpay on B or C level asset when they could have at least overpaid for a useful player and then been at the salary floor..

again ian i havent ever been active in UFA in any league ive ever been in so this isnt about me, its about whats fair for 30 people.. IMO these guys knew they were taking less than great franchise's but they join 5-7 other teams in the same situation who took teams last year but tthats the challenge.. i dont think new rules need to be implimented. just people need to STEP THEIR GAME UP as floyd mayweather would say..

Nick Lidstrom
Mark Recchi
Saku Koivu
Evgeni Nabokov
Pavol Demitra
Adrian Aucoin
Brendan Shanahan
Bill Guerin
Ray Whitney
Ed Jovonovski
Todd Bertuzzi
Michael Nylander
Ryan Smyth
Ruslan Salei
Chris Osgood
Martin Straka
Keith Tkachuk
Mike Knuble
Glen Murray
Ty Conklin
Rob Blake
Sami Salo
Steve Staios


Theres no shortage of quality UFA's so don't you worry your noble little head. We all know you only have the best interests at heart for the other GM's.

I have the perfect solution.  Kirk makes half his team available for UFA.  It'll ensure we have a better UFA talent pool, it'll bring Kirk's sick team down a notch to ensure a more competitive league, and Kirk will be able to learn what it's like to get involved in FA.   Perfect solution.

In all seriousness though, I am ok with this.  I can see the point of view of the league where we want to ensure these new GM's have teams that have at least some decent assets.  If we didn't allow this those new teams would be quite short on assets and its possible we'd be faced with filling those open GM spots soon again.  One thing that can really kill a leauge is when a few of the teams get demolished by their former GMs and they end up with absoloutely nothing, cause then no one wants to run those teams and you end up with basicly permanent vacancies... no one wants that.  I think this decision was made with the right motivation and is a decision that is for the overall betterment of the league.

The one thing I am dissapointed in is the lack of communication from the league leading up to this.  It is understandable however as I imagine this decision was only made very recently and there wasn't much time to warn people.  It's not like this could have been announced before the trade deadline or something as we had no idea what teams would be in the dispersal draft, and this no idea of what assets would be available there, and this no idea that we needed to make this decision to help the new GM's.

I was planning to be pretty active in FA and may now have to re-think this, so from my perspective that is quite frustrating.  I have agreed on a trade that will send my 1st rounder next season elsewhere, which means I want to be competitive since I don't even have my first round pick.  Now, I am going to have a much harder time getting the assets I need to be competitive, so I could really be getting screwed by this decision, but you know what, I'm willing to bite the bullet on this one because I can see that this desision was honestly made for the long term success of the league, and thus I will accept the decision with no further comment than what I've posted here now.

Cheers,

Steve

That one I already caught and sent to Eric. There may be more though.


NY Rangers wrote:

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BryceBruins wrote:

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I noticed a few. I was doing it as we went. If you see any specific, feel free to post em

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 Kipper is the big one i noticed, i will look closer

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Staios-tagged- Whitney-Tagged, Knuble- probably getting tagged, nabokov- probably getting tag, salei- probably getting tag, nylander-probably getting tag. so their goes some of ur top end guys again depleting the ufa pool even further.


also another question why were the g.ms who took brutal teams last year not given the same chance to tag untagable players? like i just dont follow how this was just implimented this year when the same situation was around last year as their were some brutal teams that needed filling.. the dispersal draft is a good way to give the new guys a chance to pick up players they like and is a great idea, giving these guys advantage's compared to last yrs new g.ms doesnt seem right i dunno though..

ps mark recchi, ty conklin, a aucoin arent good bryce ;)

Well, after having read all of the opinions on this I have to say I'm torn. While I agree it's the right thing to do for the new GM's, it does put a damper on the year old guys. Namely us. When we took over this team, we had 4 signed players. We scratched and clawed our way to getting other players. We were never in a good position to trade and got really lucky that our team made in to the Conference Finals.
We saved up and were ready to make a splash on the market this year to finally get some leverage and be able to trade assets for assets and such, but now with this happening, we're again not in a position to overpay for lesser talents.
Again, while it is a good way of doing it, why was this not done last year? How come we didn't get a chance at good players like the new GM's did? (no offence to the new guys, good for you...lol)
All in all, again, I'm not really complaining, just thinking that the level playing field that we are all looking for didn't happen this time around. We'll make due with what we have and try our best again. There's no easy solution I'm sure, but....lol

Marc Columbus.