cant say I’m surprised. but that money could have easily gone in Tanguays direction. guess he wasn’t too thrilled with the franchise.

any chance of getting together a litterbox fantasy hockey league going?

I like this move. Yes, yes, we need another forward, but if last year should have showed us anything, it’s that we need depth on defense.

We started last year with a decent T6 (Bo/Skras/Ballard/Beach/McCabe/Allen), but given the emergency signing of Cullimore after Allen got hurt two games in, it was obvious that the next batch on the depth chart (Murphy/Welch/Garrison/Ellerby) either weren’t good enough or weren’t ready yet. Murphy played a few games and got traded. Welch played a bunch of games and got traded for Eminger, who I don’t think really gelled with his teammates.

I think they’re trying to avoid that scenario again. If someone gets hurt, they want to know they’ve got three guys they can feel good about calling up. There was a big difference last year between calling up Repik or Matthias and having to call up Welch. I like the looks of McCabe/Ballard/Allen/Seidenberg as a top four, with Leopold and Skoula or Backman if they sign one as a third pairing and Koistenen as a seventh. Or even Leopold and Koistenen as a third and Garrison as a first call-up. Even if they are ready, it’s probably better for Garrison and Ellerby to start with top-line AHL minutes this season and then come up and play here when needed. We’ve got a lot of guys on one-year contracts and even if they start in Rochester, they have the opportunity when they’re called up to secure a spot for next year right out of camp.

I’m getting a little tired of people griping that this team doesn’t have depth and then complaining when the organization signs depth players. Yes, I’d love to have an Alex Tanguay on the team, but last season’s Lightning should prove the point that you can have incredibly talented scorers on your team, but lose games because you don’t have decent defense or goaltending. We have the second-best goalie in the division and he’s probably top-five in the conference. We need a defense that can help him out. Goals scored by committee are still goals, and we need to hold those 3-2 leads so they don’t become 4-3 shootout losses.

the ONLY thing I’m really going to miss is the shot blocking of Skrastins. He was one of the best, yet sorely underrated, in the league. Hopefully Leopold, Koistenin or Sidenberg can be a proper shot blocking replacement.
The less shots getting through to Voky, the better. :o)

I feel this is a solid move, yet a bit more then I thought they would spend. It probably means that they are anticipating sending Kulikov and Ellerby back to the minors and that Garrison could be the 7th.
I don’t know enough about Koistenenenenenen yet, and we’ll need to see how he does in exhibition. Skoula on the other hand was a favorite of Jacques Lemaire in Minnesota, and I could see him being added.
Even still this was a good signing.
A forward however still needs to be added. Why not invite Afinogenov or Sykora to camp as theya re still available? Any thoughts?

Afinogenov isn’t worth a penny over leave minimum.