Demitra to the circus
Jul 10th, 2008 | By Mike | Category: Free AgencyThe worst kept secret in hockey is official: Pavol Demitra is a Canuck. Two years @ $4,000,000 million. And the happiest person on the planet isn’t Demitra or Matt Keator (his agent). Nope, it’s Jes Golbez. Congrats man.
Demitra gives Vigneault another right winger (assuming he’s been studying the ‘Hockey offense for dummies’ book Gillis gave him) to use alongside the Sedins. Or you can flip him to center (assuming Steve “RFA’s make me happy” Bernier is on the first line) and have him play with Pyatt, Raymond or Wellwood on the second line or move him back to right wing to play with Wellwood or Kesler.
The downside is that Demitra is oft-injured & hasn’t played a complete season since 2001-02. But last year his 54 points in 68 games with the Wild is damn close to Naslund’s 55 points in 82 games. In fact, while we’re at it, Nalsund’s points-per-game is .80 over his career and Demitra’s is 1.07 so, couple in more post season experience and better post season stats, that’s a quality upgrade regardless of injury.
Now if the silly Sundin thing happens, the team is looking pretty good (optimistically speaking). If not, Gillis still has some work to do to get this team ready by October.
The Canucks also signed UFA defenseman Rob Davison, likely locking down the 7/8 slot with Baumgartner. Davison’s claim to fame was that 174 ft floater goal on Toskala last year.
July 10th, 2008 3:41 pm
Hey, if Dem can give us 70 games at a point per game and Davison can give us one goal like the one he got on Toskala, except on Kiprusoff instead, I’d be happy with our year, even if the Sedins died and Luongo chose to retire.
Heck, just the Davison goal would do it!
July 10th, 2008 10:54 pm
Let’s go Pavol let’s go!
July 11th, 2008 4:04 am
Neb – I should have qualified Demitra’s numbers with the fact he was skating with Gaborik for the last two years. He’ll need to kick it up without that level of talent around or have great chemistry with whoever the second line is. But hey finally a UFA signed here…only took two weeks :/.
Rinslet – …not to be confused with Pavel?