Monday Mailbag: Too lazy for a title.

Just click read more. I don’t have a description for you either, at least this week.

Not likely. The only way this makes much sense is if the Capitals take back Tyler Bozak in return, both from a dollars standpoint and from a minutes one. This isn’t likely to happen; Johansson’s ask is 4.75 million and it goes without saying that Washington should be able to bring him down to below Bozak’s 4.2. Keeping in mind that he’s better at hockey than Tyler Bozak, and the fit isn’t there.

The Buffalo Sabres and Edmonton Oilers are both better teams then they were a few months ago, but it’s unknown by how much. The Hurricanes are anyones guess, the Devils are a mess, and the Coyotes are approaching a level of bad that makes calling them a professional hockey team seem generous. Boston and Vancouver will undoubtedly be worse, but who knows how steep their fall will be. 

There’s a lot of question marks. Combine that with the fact that there are lotteries for more than just the top pick now, and the odds are anybodys guess. The Leafs are probably in a better situation to take a tank into their own hands than they were last year, though.

Bracco has a greasy flow, no doubt, but Nylander is a generational hair talent. No contest.

  

With the dilligent attention-to-detail that Brendan Shanahan has put into building his staff, I don’t think that he would make a knee-jerk hiring that would throw a wrench into the team’s plans in the long run. Kyle Dubas is an obvious heir-apparent for this team, and they wouldn’t bring somebody in as contrasting as Lamoriello if they thought that Lou would shut everybody’s opinions out.

Not to say that him would. I don’t think you need to have War-On-Ice as your homepage to be open minded, and despite Lamoriello being very old school, what is now the “old guard” is a mindset based around his prior forward-thinking. With the resources he has and the vision he has probably been contronted on, I don’t think you’ll see dictatorship by any means. He’ll make the final says, but he’s part of the staff development process as well.

You’re looking at this the wrong way. People don’t use lights as a way to signifiy that Christmas is coming, they use the proximity of Christmas as an excuse to put lights up outside their door. I hope that your neighbour has actually been turning on these lights over the spring and summer, like the free spirit he should be.