Oh man. I am getting some good chuckles out of the whole "Olesz costs the Hawks nothing but $4 mil in cap space savings" spin. Ahahaha. Yeah. . .maybe if you're a proponent of New Math where $3 mil for a player that in 6 NHL seasons has put up 30, 29, and 26 pts. totals as his career highs is somehow a FAR better deal than a player who in 1 full season put up 24 pts with 4th line minutes and only costs $875K. Anything Olesz produces is NOT a "bonus" if he plays, it's $3 mil. Period. Let's get real here----Dale Tallon has to spend upwards of $30 mil to just meet the cap floor and has been taking on other team's salary dumps like they were going out of style and even Dale did not see Olesz and his $3 mil as a part of FLA's spending plans. A "deal" to Chicago would have been taking The Ginger and giving us a junk prospect and some low picks just so he could still pad his cap not in making Stan take a $3 mil former 7th overall Draftee bust (so far for FLA, not saying it's his destiny everywhere) who may or may not still be injured. So for right now I'm all about regular old math where $875K for 24 pts. trumps $3 mil for 30 pts. at a time when neither Frolik nor Campoli have been re-signed and the team never picked up a 2C. It's all of concern to me.
GMAFB, Beach? For reals people? A player who from what I can gather spent his first pro season in Rockford underwhelmingly playing himself down the Hawks own internal depth chart. That Beach? All that I can say about Beach is that he's a genuine wild card right now who could STILL legitimately go either way but his time with the Hogs didn't prove jack shit except he still hasn't learned to totally use his brains and how to maximize his potential talents out on the ice. So Stalberg is lazy and is a doofus on the ice according to some but somehow lazy and boneheaded decision-making Beach is gonna bust hump, give it 110% and finally use his head on the 3rd or 4th line for the Hawks. Right. We know this how? Let's see if he finally has a standout Training Camp and pre-season before we start anointing him to the 4th line.
Morin. Morin is a stud with Top 6 potential and his development would be wasted on a 4th line IMO. He's better than that and I think most if us expect better than that from him if he can be a stud once again at Training Camp and pre-season and play his way onto the roster. There are no guarantees though because quite frankly I don't know how Morin's game is looking these days---he injured his shoulder in Dec. at the WJC, recouperated from that then returned to playing for the Hogs for all of a few weeks before going down in Jan. with either a consussion or whiplash or whatever head/neck injury severe enough for him to miss the rest of the Hogs season. All I know is that he was called upon to be a Black Ace and that the coaches say he should be fine for TC---we have ZERO idea how his game is actually looking though going back to the first two weeks of fucking January. If he's 2010 Morin then that will be fucking FANTASTIC and I hope that he can snatch the 2nd line LW spot and be lights-out. Cross our fingers that he is ready.
Ben Smith---unless he regresses to an unimaginable degree at TC and pre-season, I think we're all pretty much in agreement that he's likely earned a spot.
The only thing I will concede is that yes, the Stalberg signing even at a low price is helping to promote a logistical roster logjam right now. But THAT'S precisely what Camp is for---helping to sort these issues out and then further distillation after Camp with who makes the cut for the pre-season. He might get traded, he might or might not make the team and that's the same for all the non-star players caught up in the logjam. I can't say he doesn't fit because there's not even been Camp action yet. We'll just have to see how it all plays out. I rather prefer that the Hawks greatest so-called "burden" going into this TC is perhaps bringing too many players with upside to Camp as opposed to last year when they had signed and knew they were going to have to keep some underwhelming talent because of the cap woes.
