Wednesday's notebook

Best defense, worst offense in years. Third place in the standings. What's missing? SNIPER. Go get one.

Where do you find affordable and available snipers these days???

JR, David Alexandre-Beauregard was signed by Tulsa last week. The salary cap would have to be satisfied by either cutting someone, placing a player on IR, or both. Stauffacher still has not signed with anyone as yet. The K's are playing with one Vet spot open and the Franke's know how to play the salary cap game. They can make the moves if they want to. Best defense in years, worst offense in years, 3rd place, and not showing any consistency in scoring. Wouldn't you do everything you could to bring someone in? What is presently in place is not working as far as goal scoring is concerned.

Bringing in a sniper still doesnt solve the inconsistant effort this teams puts out. One week they look unstoppable and then the next week they look flat out horrible... I truly believe that this team needs a roster shakeup and not a sniper addition. They have guys that can score on this team who just arent on a regular basis. Maybe certain guys are getting to comfortable with their entrenched positions in Ft Wayne? A couple fan favorites may have to be sacrificed for the good of the team to help shake things up and send a message that coasting thru the season isnt gonna cut it...

Wasn't Chwedoruk supposed to be a sniper. I have no problem with the way he plays, but we have plenty of scoring talent, JR is right, effort is the problem.

I agree. While letting someone go will be a little strange since we've seen these guys for so long, I don't think having a job here in town should keep you on a team when you're not producing or putting effort on the ice.

Mario Larocque 7GP 1G 3A 4PTS +10
Mitch Woods 2GP 0G 2A 2PTS +0

Having a legit blueline threat on the second PP unit would be great. Larocque and DeAngelis would be a great pair on the PP. Mario might be a little lazy, but he scores on the PP.. that seems to keep at least one Komet on the roster.

I question if Stauffacher is healthy. DAB might not have been interested in coming here. He doesn't seem to do well in places where the offense isn't built around him.

Isn't Aquino's season in Italy over?

Maybe we can talk J.C. Ruid out of retirement.

You have to look at it another way. Who exactly are you going to get rid of to bring these guys in under the salary cap? And it's going to have to be one of the big guns, Chaulk, Dupuis, Shafranov, Thomas, Drouin because only they make enough money to fit someone huge like that under the cap. They could not afford DAB. Period. It's always easy to say add so and so, but whom do you get rid of is the hardest part. That's part of the situation this year, you've got so much cap space taken up by four or five people, there's no flexibility.

If Aquino can shoot the puck 3 feet over the net and sell insurance, then I know who I'd get rid of after the last home game... I know, you stat guys out there are going to give me tons of stats on how offensively awesome he is, I just don't see the same fight and desire that we're used to this year. Type in disagreements here please :/

And those 4 or 5 guys are so intertwined into the community that they have become untradeable.... This is Ft Waynes Achilles heal, IMO. Yeah its great that these guys call Ft Wayne home; but when you have no flexability to move people or shake things up because of this your doomed untill you can clear house at the end of the season... So as fans all we can do in a year like this is just sit here and hope that the untradeables somehow get a burr lodged somewhere and start to come ready to play every night from the opening faceoff on...

Yeah! And they also won you two titles, darn them!

Right on Blake!!!

OK, I'll give you that one, Blake, and I'm totally grateful for the titles, the memories, and the fun games. But does that give them the right to not play hard night-in and night-out this year? Are we obligated to keep them and accept lackluster efforts until they decide to leave just because of what they did in the past?

What a bunch of low life loosers can't win the title 3 years in a row. Get rid of them all darn it. They are a bunch of bums! Who says they are going to get hot during the playoffs and PH and Musky will choke like usual. Shake the whole roster up, get rid of that dead weight right now. Al doesn't know jack and he doesn't want to get rid of them. Get rid of him too darn it.

And I hate to keep throwing logic into this, but eventually your younger boss is going to say the same thing about you someday. It happens to everyone.

Now, onto USA-Switzerland!

Wicked wrister off the post, eh?

Typical responses from unhealthy hero worshiping......

I throw out leftovers after a couple days when they've become bad... I dont keep them around untill they've turned brown and stink to high heaven and to the point where I cant remember how great the original meal was.... No regrets...

If I only showed up every other week ready to work and be productive from the time I clock in until the time I clock out, I would be out on my arse faster than I could blink, not sitting around with my employer listening to him tell me how outstanding my performance was last year.... No matter what my bosses age was....

LOL. Knew I'd get you fired up on that one, JR. Here's the hook, here's the line and there goes the sinker!

Real tough decisions, no doubt about it. I understand the salary cap situation, I really do. However, if you could bring in a goal scorer the cap space would come from this area. 1) I know that this won't be popular, but I would shut Hukalo down. He hasn't been healthy all season, it will take him time to get into "game shape" and the type of injuries he's suffered from (shoulder, concussion, back) are injuries that can flare up at any time. 2) I would release a defenseman (many might guess Woodard but they would be wrong). Then I would release a forward ( the person I'm thinking about is not a veteran, he's a tweener, and it is not Chewy). I would not release any of the "icons" listed by some above. One player will have to be released when Hukalo returns anyway. So, by shutting down Hukalo, releasing a d-man and another forward, I'm sure you could fall underneath the salary cap.

Yeah, well, I was just going to point out how you have been saying how changes may need to happen in your last couple inside the zones due to lackluster performance and then you pull the ol jumping the fence thing here.... I guess you need a few realistic posts to stir the pot and generate some posts... :) Whatever I can do to help!

NO GOAL=SAD

Alan, that's the problem. I don't think your moves would free up enough cap space to make a significant enough move. Huk already doesn't count against the cap, and the folks you would release are not making enough money to do what you want.

Man, what do we have to do to beat this guy? The Swiss PK is amazing! I'll bet every North American pro coach is going to try to copy that ASAP.

I'm not a big fan of cutting guys, but I'm a HUGE fan of benching their butts to get their attention sometimes.

Probably just my ignorance of being a "casual fan", Professor G_Hockey, but could you tell me what a "looser" is? Is that someone who doesn't skate tight, crisp strides anymore, but still has a job in the community and makes commercials on the video board, so he is still a great player? Is a "looser" someone who misses the net altogether over and over? Does it have to do with some other aspect of the game? Does the "looser" have some type of responsibility dealing with stringing the goal? Is there a "tighter" out there to confront the "looser" in kind of an offense versus defense configuration?

Interesting comment, Blake. Hukalo will count against the cap when he comes back. There isn't any way for me to know conclusively, but I would think that three salaries could make up for one player. My argument, against myself, would be putting too much pressure on the fact that they would really be one man short by doing what I suggested. The big difference this year from the last two years, in my opinion, is that two years ago, the Islanders let Aquino come here to play out his contract, and Curredeau turned out to be a real "find", then they got lucky by Hodgman's junior coach (a former Komet goaltender) encouraging him to come here late in the season. Last year the K's suffered through so many injuries and held tough. Then when they finally got healthy Curedeau was back, Hodgman returned, and they were on fire. Do the Franke's have their eyes on some Junior player who can make a difference?