I'd luv to see Big Zaddy back. He seems to be pretty close with Millzy, I guess the aholes are pretty tight. Hopefully their bond will work in our favour.
$5M+ is a bit high for Zaddy, but I think he's worth the risk. I always thought that our new Nikta is basically an improved version of our past Nikita (Nikita Tryamkin), but I think he's more. Tryamkin played most of his developmental years in Russia and he didn't really know English, so he didn't really understand the culture/mentality of the NHL. He was also a bit of a softie @ heart, he didn't really understand the reasons why NHLers would want to fight after a clean hit. I don't think he really intended to hurt ppl out there as well, but it seemed to happen accidently mainly because he was so much bigger and stronger than everyone else. Zaddy on the other hand came over to North America as a teenager and played a couple years with the London Knights, so his English is solid and he understands the whole NHL culture/mentality. Zaddy is also a bad ass, he knows he's bigger than the majority of the NHL players and he doesn't hesitate to use his size to his advantage. One thing I really like as well is his attitude. He's not afraid to speak his mind and he can talk trash to other players and fans. Like a cool cat, that stuff doesn't faze him or effect his play, unlike our old buddy Roberto Luongo.
I also think Zaddy is also much more skilled than Tryamkin. I think that 14G season he had in Calgary was no fluke. As we saw in the playoffs, he seems to have a really accurate shot. He doesn't need to take a big wind up with a slapper, but he just kind of snaps it on net and it seems to have the accuracy and velocity to surprise a lot of goalies.
Zaddy is basically everything I hoped for in Tryamkin, but he's so much more. Come to think of it, he's way more closer to the former Norris calibre D-man in the other Big Z with the Bruins than an improved version of Tryamkin. He's basically a poor man's version of Zdeno Chara.
As much as I like Lindholm, I think I walk from that deal. A part of me still couldn't believe that a guy liked Ryan O'Reilly signed a multi-year deal for under $5M. Honestly, I'd take an O'Reilly over a Garly and/or Mikheyev any day @ that price point. Lindholm might deserve a lil more money than O'Reilly @ this time mainly because of the age factor, but I don't think by much.
There's a lot of talk that the Bruins have some money to spend and they want a centre, so they'll prob open up the chq book for Lindholm; however, if I were the Bs and want to make a splash with a centreman... I'm going for Steven Stamkos. Sure, Stammer is a bit older, but he's much more offensively gifted and just came off a solid 40G season. Put him with Pasternak and they might be dynamite together. I guess Utah might want to make the headlines and spend some money on a star player to sell tickets, but is E.Lindholm that guy? Not sure, he's not exactly a star caliber player.
If Lindholm walks, it would kinda suck considering all the assets we had to give up to acquire him. Maybe we can find a similar RS centre out there. Hopefully this time, our mgmt will target a guy who's younger with a similar defensive mindset, so that he can kind of grow with the core of this team and not just be a rental.
