[bubbsy]

lotta movement, obvious winners thus far for me are the teams that traded to get their Centers (anaheim/dallas), the ufa deals seem difficult to actually determine winners from.

will say that i'm sorta shocked at the pens so far. i thought the erhoff deal was great but expected them to be much busier on trying to solidify their wings with talent. Thought they'd be in on guys like hemsky, havlat, cammalleri, vanek, moulson, etc.

for a franchise that is in extreme win now, and a GM that got thrown out for not being able to round out the roster with the talent and toughness to do much in the playoffs, the new regime has started off pretty quiet. must be more to their plan some where...

as far as the flames go, think they got worse as raymond doesn't come close to replacing cammalleri as a upper echelon scoring threat, and i think engellend is about equal to butler all things considered. Hiller definitely solidify's the goaltending. Will be curious to see who wins out the starting role.

the forward/defense is 90% the same guys as last year with the additions of raymond/bollig/engellend, and the removal of cammalleri/westgarth/butler and perhaps byron if he counts (only here for part of the season). Assuming a bit of a sophmore slump from monahan, and not expecting any kids to come up and light the score sheet up, it could actually get pretty grim.

As of now, the team is trending towards another lottery pick. I also feel that is just fine. Next offseason is likely where we see the flames not only get what could be a generational pick in the draft, but also having some kids stepping in and owning critical roles with the big club, and looking to make a splash or two to really improve the defense.