Free Agency Reactions Part One (RW77)

UPDATE: First, I found a few errors in the TSN Free Agent Tracker so I'm going to correct them now.

Day one of Free Agency is now over and there were a lot of moves. Most of them, I don't care about or know too little about to make any sort of opinion about.

However, there were a few moves and a rant about monetary worth that I will share with you today.

First, former MTU defenseman (sorta) John Scott signed a 2 year $1.25 million contract with Chicago. Uh....... You could have signed Adam Burish back for 2 years $1.15 million and had a better all around player. But I guess not. Surely there were better options than Scott? The guy is only barely better than Boogaard defensively and equal to Boogaard offensively (in otherwords, non existent). They claim he's versatile and can play forward or defense... I guess so. They never claimed Scott could play either position well.

Check this out: John Scott signed a $612,500/year contract for having some basic fighting skills and being over 6'4 in height. Tambellini, a scoring forward (at least in college) was on the market and went for $500k. That's right... a guy with more offensive upside than Scott went for less.

UPDATE: Ok, it's not as bad as it was originally, but I swear to god there HAS to be a better defensive option than Scott. They haven't locked up Hendry or Hjalmarssen (though both are expected to be back) yet but I really don't see Scott as an every day player... even if it is 3rd pairing. He's another Boogaard. $500k/year is all he's worth. Oh, and by the way, apparently Scott turned down MORE MONEY to be a Hawk. I wish I knew which team had the bigger moron.

Kudos to the Wild for not falling for this crap. Shame on the Hawks for seeing Scott as being more valuable than anyone with ANY upside other than fighting. Scott isn't going to replace Byfuglien. Byfuglien may fight but he's not KNOWN for it. He's know for driving everyone on the other team nuts. Burish could have done that.

New Jersey says goodbye to Paul Martin and hello to Anton Volchenko. Volchenko was, according to ESPN people, a top flight defenseman coming into free agency but is he as good as Martin offensively? Well, he's certainly cheaper than Martin. So Martin is gone for sure (Skoula is probably also gone) and they pick up Tallinder and Volchenko.

Detroit has basically standed pat. They resigned Holmstrom and Lidstrom. They do have a few names as RFAs and UFAs such as Abdelkader, Meech, Helm, Lebda, Lilja, and Maltby. I see the Wings resigning Meech, Helm, and Lebda for sure (I read somewhere that the only reason why they haven't resigned Abdelkader yet is because they're trying to figure out length of contract not necessarily money). The others.... Larssen might get resigned for goaltending depth but I don't know much about him. Maltby, Williams, Janik, and all are replaceable IMO. Lilja might even be replaceable if they can find the right guy. He's 34 and I'd love to see Detroit get at least a little younger.

Still quiet on the front of the Blackhawks and their goaltending. No word on Niemi to my knowledge and Huet's contract is one of the worst in the NHL.

This is what I said originally:
Montreal's backup (that term used loosely) is now Dan Ellis. He'll play the role of backup to Carey Price for about the first half of the season. Then when they are 6-8 points out of playoff contention, the Canadiens will start panicking and bench Price and then once again make the playoffs. I don't know if they'll go deep, but will they get the idea that, after two straight seasons of the act of simply benching Price gets them to the playoffs teach them? Probably not because Price's agent isn't a moron. The Canadiens will spend big bucks on Price to keep him around and the Canadiens will be just as screwed as the Hawks with Huet.

Update with this:

Montreal's backup goaltenders are now Curtis Sanford and Alex Auld. Yup. I think Montreal wanted to make definitely sure that there was NO ONE in Montreal that will outplay Price this coming season. Sanford is a career bubble player who never really played well enough to get a shot but on the other hand never played poor enough to spend his entire career in the minors. Alex Auld is a conundrum to me. I don't see him as having ever been any more solid a backstop as Sanford yet he's gotten more shots wherever he went...Vancouver...Florida...New York (somewhat less than the others)...and will surely get some shots when Price shows how much he sucks. He was one of the cogs in the Luongo trade if I recall correctly.

More to come later.