State of the Loons; Post Trade Deadline

As expected, there was a flurry of trades involving the Loons this year. Looking at it from afar - there seemed to be no strategy other then just to move players. Prospects were sent out to bring in elite players, but then elite players were sent out to bring in prospects. Confused? Well, earlier in the year a memo did go out that Capeside was targeting players that management "liked". From the look of the players that were brought in, it seems to be players that are either from New England and/or players from the US National Team.

Additions: John Carlson (Natick,MA), Zdeno Chara (lives in Boston), Andrew Peeke (US National), the return of Bode Wilde (US National), Bobby Brink (US National), Alex Vlasic (US National), Cam Atkinson (CT), Arthur Kaliyev (US National)

Departures: The two departures that go against the current roster building philosophy were Kevin Hayes and Alex Turcotte.

Looking ahead - we simply would not be able to afford Hayes. His contract expires after the 2020-21 season and his salary and he will be due a massive raise up to $9 million. As far as Turcotte goes - it was just simply a mistake. We made the decision to go all in with Trevor Zegras and as much as we wanted to keep both, moving Turcotte was necessary in order to land Carlson. The mistake came later once we were finally able to acquire Kaliyev - it sure would have been nice to pair future teammates together in Turcotte/Kaliyev (LAK).

Even after our successful inaugural year, Simon is still a mystery to me. Last year we added big name, high priced players like Giroux only to start losing. This year we splurged and brought in Kessel, JVR and Panarin only to see the same result. As long as we continue to have no idea what we are really doing - we are just going to continue to sink or swim with players that we like. So if you have a Bruin, a New Englander or a veteran of the US National Team, odds are that you will eventually have an email in your inbox from me. You have been warned.