Quote:
Originally Posted by Psytic
Feels more like a , "oh he is available lets try sending an offer". A fortuitous event that probably wasn't planned months or even weeks in advance I bet.
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Well you can't really plan too far ahead since guys get re-signed before July 1st all the time, but you can make a list of guys that you want to target come July 1st and given the weak UFA crop, it shouldn't be too hard for most teams this year. You pretty much know whether a guy is going to test the market and whether a team has any plan of re-signing the player before July 1st. But even without that information, it doesn't take much effort to create contingency plans where you have different scenarios.
As far as the Stempniak signing goes, I tend to believe that Feaster & co. feel that Stempniak is a player they want to keep in the fold and a player who can play multiple roles. I think the Stempniak signing was going to happen regardless of whether the Flames landed Hudler, but it is possible that Feaster didn't want to take the risk of playing the UFA lottery and decided to re-sign Stempniak just to be safe.