It is the management's responsibility to the owners and to the fans you pay the tickets to keep salary to a minimum, it is the player's agents responsibility to get as much for their clients as possible. If we are to look at the Giordano signing in Russia for a minute and get past the initial shock of it we know a few things, that the flames were offering around just over half what he signed for with Omsk, the next is that the flames retain his rights this season, the next is that he could opt out of his Russian contract in a heartbeat.
Well just over half sound like a lot right? In actuality it could be a matter of a few hundred thousand, to me and you that is a lot of money, to the flames in retaining one of their best young D, it might not be. This could be a superb bargaining chip by Giordano's agent in attempt to get a few hundred thousand more out of the flames and most fans wouldn't agree it's worth it for this guy. Most fans could give or take Eriksson, he has Zyuzin written all over him.
If Giordano does in fact leave it would, for me, signal the first big mistake I've seen Sutter make.
I couldn't agree more we will miss him great blog buddy
I agree. I do NOT want to see Giordano go. Erikkson will be a bum for sure, but can you get worse than Zyuzin? Looks to me like Sutter is seeing if he can find anyone that might be worse. I hope he's not gone for sure, letting a puck-moving defenseman go would be a major mistake.
Warrener will miss 20 - 30 games on the DL as usual and if Aucoin can't stay healthy this will bite us in the rump. David Hale can't play in back to back games and Erikkson had a good year last year by comparisson but has been a bust for most of his career. We now have 3 guys I'm comfortable with Regehr, Sarich, Phanuef (who now that Hamrlik is gone will blossom, less for the on ice influence and more because of the bad off ice influence Roman had on him). Richie Regehr is playing in Europe and now Giordano's gone too. What does that leave us with for up and comers? Young Defence prospects
Looks like Stephane Yelle and Mikka Kiprusoff will have to be some of our best defenceman again