It feels good to finally say that football is back! Even though the only real casualty to the NFL calendar was the pre-season, this felt like an especially long off-season. In the NHL, the Stanley Cup finals look all but locked up with Tampa and Dallas both holding 3-1 leads. I say that but if we have learned anything from Bubble Life, 3-1 leads are anything but safe, just ask the Clippers.
Bargain Bin Bergevin goes Back-to-Back
Alliteration aside, I like the signing. Montreal perennially lose out in bidding wars on Free Agency Day (FAD), and to be honest it’s probably for the best. The last big Free Agent (FA) signing for the Habs was Karl Alzner and people love pointing out how that went. This is a prime example of how FAD is nothing more than the official ‘Dump Spending Day’ of the season. This is ignoring that the Habs are at a clear disadvantage when it comes the FAs because of the provinces high taxes.
The Edmunson trade addresses one of the key holes in the Montreal Depth chart, a 3rd pairing Left Defenseman. Romanov being brought into the bubble to be around the team basically all but locked him into a spot on this roster and I believe he will get his fair share along side Weber and Petry for developmental purposes. Once we get to the bottom pairing and look at the youth in the Habs pipeline on defense; now is the time to really find out what it is made of. In order to do this one of Juulsen or Fleury need to make the jump to the NHL, and I don’t think they will be able to properly develop into a NHL defenseman along side Kulak or Mete.
Edmunson would be expected to play solid minutes on a regular basis and provide stability and consistency to allow the Habs to try and push Fleury and Juulsen’s development to the point where they are every day NHL players. He will be able to take away some of the workload from Weber, Petry and Chiarot, not only at 5on5 but specifically on the Penalty Kill. Finally, he brings playoff experience, winning the Stanley Cup last year with the Blues, which if the Habs are serious about taking that next step, will become increasingly more expensive the longer the team waits.
If we look at Edmunson’s contract history, he has taken back to back one year deals for $3M each time, clearly taking a short term gamble to possibly get the value or term he wants. At 27 years old, his window to lock down a long term contract is running out, and the Habs can offer him a unique contract very few teams can. At this point, it should be common knowledge that the Habs are one of the most cash flush teams in the NHL. Montreal can sign Edmunson to a ‘long term’ deal, maximize his signing bonus (think Sebastien Aho offer sheet) which in turn keeps the base salary low.
This is a win/win because the Habs can afford this. Edmunson gets the pay day he wants, and probably feels he deserves. Finally his contract becomes an enviable trade piece come deadline day if everything goes completely south. Even if everything goes right, the affordable contract would be a massive premium in the COVID-19 Cap Era. Not to mention the Habs still have enough cap space to retain salary in order to increase the return.
To recap, I just don’t see the downside for a fifth round pick, considering the Habs still have 11 picks remaining in this years draft.
FOOTBALL IS BACK!
Well Week 1 has come. Week 1 is almost done, and the good news for myself is, things cannot get any worse. Be that as it may, just the fact that football is back was a treat in itself. I would be lying if I didn’t say that there was a large part of me that expected the season to be delayed, but I must give the NFL credit. I still have no idea how some teams allowed fans into their building but ‘Murica!
The Vikings lost, well more so got embarrassed in every facet of the game. The defense deserved a much better fate, they were incredible for most of the first half until they got tired. Things started of strong for the Vikings, a huge Red Zone stand to keep the Packers to a Field Goal, then the offense runs the ball through Dalvin and takes a 7-3 lead. Defense makes a second Red Zone stand, this time making a stop on 4th & Goal from the 1 yard line. Then Cousins gets sacked for a Safety and the snowball took off. For those who didn’t watch, at one point in the first half, Rodgers had attempted 25 passes. Cousins, 2.
In the hierarchy of things I care about each week in the world of football, a Vikings win can salvage any and all fantasy loses. Next is my survivor pick because well, who doesn’t want to win money. Losing my survivor pool to Gardiner Minshew is so 2020. Thankfully I have two picks and Josh Allen is one of two (potential) silver linings in my fantasy weekend.
The second being that I currently hold a lead against fellow blogger Will in the Hot Sauce Fantasy League. I am up 22 points at the moment and he has AJ Brown and the Steelers D left to play. I would appreciate any and all positive vibes you can spare because I am currently 0-4 in my other leagues. A win would be nice for my ego, but like I eluded to, things can only go up! I hope.
Just one victory, it’s all I ask.