Duncan has been doing some comparative analysis of Northwest Division rosters over at his blog, and seeing them all laid out like that made me think of a shopping list. So let's go shopping! But like any shopping excursion we need to stay on budget and stay focused on what we need. So here are the parameters of our virtual spree: Choose one player each from our Divisional opponents, a player who's talents might fit into your vision of the Flames. But in order to make it a little more interesting (and keep everyone from picking Luongo) we have to take some of nicer goods off of the shelves, thus there will be four players from each of our divisional foes that are off limits for this exercise.
The 'off limits' players:
Colorado: Stastny, Svatos, Wolski, and Liles
Edmonton: Horcoff, Hemsky, Gagner, Gilbert
Minnesota: Gaborik, Bouchard, Koivu, Burns
Vancouver: Luoungo, the Sedins, Mitchell
Okay, lemme see, going from West to East I like:
from Vancouver: Ryan Kessler; the 'Nucks might be forced to play him in their top 6 this year, but I think he's the next Sam Pahlsson, and you could build a kick-ass shutdown line around him.
from Edmonton: Erik Cole; hmm, I guess its Cole, he's definitely a quality guy but not a guy that screams 'gotta have' to me. Probably would play on the top line in Calgary. He's more of a staple than an impulse buy.
from Colorado: Milan Hejduk; but man, Smyth is tempting. But we need some scoring, even though Milan is closer to the end then the beginning I still think he could get 25.
from Minnesota: Marek Zidlicky; I think he'd slot right in there at No. 4 dman and contribute some on the PP. Also, remind me, how did we lose Foster?
Who do you like today?
