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| The Sweaters are washed and hung to dry, ready for a new year. |
We go into this year with something different than expectations. In my opinion, making the playoffs this year is an organizational imperative. If we want to establish the fact that the organization has indeed moved forward, the playoffs are imperative. And the road to the playoffs is long, hard, and full of pitfalls. In many ways we may be counting on the guys who finished second in OT at the Traverse City Prospects Tournament last night. We may need those guys to rise up if misfortune visits our team.
They made a credible showing, losing the championship game in 3 on 3 OT. Those things happen in that format. They played well against a good Chicago team that they jumped early, but Chicago took over in the latter half of the game. There is a lot of room for growth.
Due to being home yesterday unexpectedly, I had an opportunity to engage in a spirited Twitter discussion with a lot of CBJ fans, but primarily @CapnCornelius. The subject of our discussion was the contract status of Josh Anderson, with training camp looming. On its face, this would seem to be a pretty straight forward negotiation. The Agent is asking for a lot of money because the CBJ reputedly gave up a lot of assets to keep Anderson. But Josh is a Restricted Free Agent without arbitration rights. That means this is the one contract negotiation where the CBJ have the leverage. Josh had a fine first year in the league. He needs to duplicate that to get the big money. Holding out of training camp will not help him to duplicate it, but he would be stone cold crazy to go to camp without a contract. So whats the sticking point?
According to our Twitter conversation, there are a lot more moving parts to this negotiation than you would think. First of all, the CBJ are still in the running for a trade to the Colorado Avalanche for Matt Duchene, and his $6 million contract. So money has to go the other way, and what you give Josh has a real impact on how close you are to the cap this year. And next year the salary negotiations are just going to be awful, with many good players up for contracts and raises. You cannot go into next year with enough cap room. The money they give to Josh takes up some of that space. Pierre Luc-Dubois is eligible for a lot of bonuses under his ELC. If those bonuses put you over the cap, there are penalties to be paid, and you sure as heck don't want penalty money on your cap next year. So the Jackets need to know where these chips are going to fall before they can get serious with Anderson's contract negotiation.
That's a lot of moving parts.
Lastly, on the cross-mojozination front, there has been a lot of change in the CBJ blogosphere. A couple of new sites have been launched, along with the standards the Cannon and Buckeye State Hockey. A new site called The First Ohio Battery has been launched, and has maintained a good content stream all summer. I recommend checking it out. Secondly, in a phenomenon sweeping the continent, a new site called The Athletic has been launched. This site is a subscription site behind a paywall, but they have gathered a great deal of talent from across the country. Aaron Portzline and Tom Reed have both left the Columbus Dispatch to write for The Athletic Cleveland, and the content has been outstanding. If you can afford it, I recommend it.
I'm looking forward to a fun season. I haven't had a whole lot of angst this summer, and have enjoyed the summer a great deal. A top five finish will do that kind of thing for you. But its a new season, and we are tied for first, and tied for last. There will probably be some separation once the real games start. For now, we must be content with preseason. It's gonna be fun!
GO JACKETS!!
GO MONSTERS!!
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