I dont know, JayBo is pretty darn good and he is still pretty young

 

give some of the young guys more than 3-4 years to grow

 

not everyone is Sid the Kid

 

I've been hearing 3-4 years to grow since the 2002 season. Now the panthers are saying it again. Unless they make a splash in free agency this team will not make the playoffs for a while.

maybe it's me but I think JayBo is coming into his own this year and he should be an all star too

 

again, I think it's unfair to give guys 2-3-4 years and say you need to perform now or else

 

I hate the way players are judged these days(not necessarily picking on you guys, just my feeling on sports in general)

 

The team has been dog sh*t since the 2000-2001 season. Are we going to give everyone 10 years to preform? Seriously we have had top 5 picks for the past few seasons and havent done anything.

I dont know, JayBo is pretty darn good and he is still pretty young

 

give some of the young guys more than 3-4 years to grow

 

not everyone is Sid the Kid

 

I've been hearing 3-4 years to grow since the 2002 season. Now the panthers are saying it again. Unless they make a splash in free agency this team will not make the playoffs for a while.

maybe it's me but I think JayBo is coming into his own this year and he should be an all star too

 

again, I think it's unfair to give guys 2-3-4 years and say you need to perform now or else

 

I hate the way players are judged these days(not necessarily picking on you guys, just my feeling on sports in general)

 

Without turning this into a full on hate fest on Horton/Weiss/Bouwmeester (since that's not where I intended it to go at all) I just want to point out these simple facts:

 

All were top-5 picks in successive drafts, Weiss in 2001, Bouw in 2002, Horton in 2003.

 

The other teams at the top of those drafts (Atlanta, Ottawa, Pittsburgh, Carolina, Philadelphia, Anaheim) all have take the leap. Moreover, no team in the NHL, not one, picked top 5 in 2001, 2002 and 2003. Teams that had 2 top 5 picks in those 3 years (Atlanta, Pittsburgh) are in situations that have the rest of the league jealous.

 

That's all. Time has come, other teams are reaping the benefit of those tough seasons, but the Panthers are still treading the waters of obscurity and ineffectiveness.

I dont know, JayBo is pretty darn good and he is still pretty young

 

give some of the young guys more than 3-4 years to grow

 

not everyone is Sid the Kid

 

I've been hearing 3-4 years to grow since the 2002 season. Now the panthers are saying it again. Unless they make a splash in free agency this team will not make the playoffs for a while.

maybe it's me but I think JayBo is coming into his own this year and he should be an all star too

 

again, I think it's unfair to give guys 2-3-4 years and say you need to perform now or else

 

I hate the way players are judged these days(not necessarily picking on you guys, just my feeling on sports in general)

 

The team has been dog sh*t since the 2000-2001 season. Are we going to give everyone 10 years to preform? Seriously we have had top 5 picks for the past few seasons and havent done anything.

Im just referring to Weiss-Horton-JayBo really....

 

and as for what Swifty said above, it seems like the players those other teams put around their youngsters are far superior to what vets we had surrounding ours with(before this season)

and as for what Swifty said above, it seems like the players those other teams put around their youngsters are far superior to what vets we had surrounding ours with(before this season)

 

And what does that tell us about the Panthers...?

 

That's exhibit 'c' for my ineptitude case.

I dont know, JayBo is pretty darn good and he is still pretty young

 

give some of the young guys more than 3-4 years to grow

 

not everyone is Sid the Kid

 

I've been hearing 3-4 years to grow since the 2002 season. Now the panthers are saying it again. Unless they make a splash in free agency this team will not make the playoffs for a while.

maybe it's me but I think JayBo is coming into his own this year and he should be an all star too

 

again, I think it's unfair to give guys 2-3-4 years and say you need to perform now or else

 

I hate the way players are judged these days(not necessarily picking on you guys, just my feeling on sports in general)

 

The team has been dog sh*t since the 2000-2001 season. Are we going to give everyone 10 years to preform? Seriously we have had top 5 picks for the past few seasons and havent done anything.

Im just referring to Weiss-Horton-JayBo really....

 

and as for what Swifty said above, it seems like the players those other teams put around their youngsters are far superior to what vets we had surrounding ours with(before this season)

 

 

Alot of the top 5 picks around the league will play well regardless of who is on their line. Weiss has been a major let down thus far. JayBo is looking like he will turn out pretty good. The jury is still out on horton, but I think he will turn out alright. The rest of our young players are basically crap. Our vets arent much better with the exception of Ollie and Bertuzzi (who will probably miss the year).

 

However you cant keep saying give the panthers 3 more years, since thats already been said for the past 5 seasons.

the problem this franchise ran into for the last decade is mike keenan (and alan cohen - for hiring him....twice)

 

we had a path set long ago. we went full-out rebuild mode. we had a promising young netminder and a (at the time anyway) promising looking young nucleus with huselius, hagman, weiss, krajicek and shvidki.

 

now all of them aside from weiss are gone. why? simple - mike keenan is a halfwit. huselius had an unbelievable start to his career down here, he was outscoring kovalchuk and heatley through the first half of the season. keenan found a way to ruin that though. his intimidation tactics killed the confidence of all the young players on this team. huselius and hagman have become solid contributers on their new squads. huselius is on pace for around 30 goals while hagman has learned and evolved into one of the better penalty killers in the league. what do we have to show for it? steve montador and a 7th round pick. nice job, iron mike!.

 

as if that wasn't enough - he alienates the franchise player we have been building around. luongo acted like a baby but none of it would have ever happened if keenan wasn't an egotistical jackass. eventually he had to be traded and keenan pulled the trigger on one of the worst trades i've ever seen. bryan allen sucks, alex auld is average at best and bertuzzi had so much baggage at the time his value was at it's lowest....and that's not even counting the back issues that, supposedly, no one knew about.

 

the core of this team has changed entirely - you're seeing that now. horton is productive but not consistent. olesz shows flashes of brilliance but they're few and far between. he should be alot more productive than he actually is. bouwmeester i have no complains with - he's been improving steadily and is already a legitamate #1. weiss looks great out there but he isn't putting up many points despite creating alot of offensive chances. i don't know if he's to blame or the poor talent around him. he's a playmaker - tough to rack up assists when you're playing with stonehands gelinas on a consistent basis.

 

this organization needs to rebuild....but not the young players. instead, get rid of all these mistakes keenan brought in here and bring in PRODUCTIVE veterans to sprinkle on the roster and take the pressure off of these kids. gelinas, stumpel, roberts, belfour, gratton - get rid of them all and use that money on productive players...even if you have to overspend a bit to do it.

 

the only positive to this is florida looks to have around 20million available in cap space this offseason if all things go to plan. we're at 41mil right now. stumpel, gelinas, roberts, nieuwendyk, belfour, bertuzzi all have their contracts run our which means around $14million will be cleared up (assuming none are re-signed. add the fact that the salary cap is expected to rise to $7 mill and bam - you've got $20million free to go shopping with this offseason...and it's an extremely, extremely strong group. just to name a few: pavel datsyuk, daniel briere, chris drury, peter forsberg, markus naslund, teemu selanne, joe sakic, ryan smyth, paul kariya, bertuzzi, scott gomez, brendan shanahan, ladislav nagy, shane doan, keith tkachuk and mats sundin

 

....and those are just the forwards! some will re-sign, obviously, but a good number won't and we should be as well positioned as anyone to make a run at a few of them. alot of them are in their primes so they have no excuses not to.

If Ed Jovonovski, who lives here, played here and is/was friends with Bertuzzi won't come here, there's no chance in hell of luring a Peter Forsberg/Teemu Selanne/etc.

 

It's just a viscious cycle.

If Ed Jovonovski, who lives here, played here and is/was friends with Bertuzzi won't come here, there's no chance in hell of luring a Peter Forsberg/Teemu Selanne/etc.

 

It's just a viscious cycle.

 

Panthers just need to open their wallet. You might need to overpay for a year or two, but if you can put together some decent teams then players might want to come here.

If Ed Jovonovski, who lives here, played here and is/was friends with Bertuzzi won't come here, there's no chance in hell of luring a Peter Forsberg/Teemu Selanne/etc.

 

It's just a viscious cycle.

 

Panthers just need to open their wallet. You might need to overpay for a year or two, but if you can put together some decent teams then players might want to come here.

 

Yeah, sure I hope so, but if this team is going to go from what it is to "decent" (as in looking at the 4-6 seeds instead of hoping for the 8) they're going to have to spend a lot more than they've recently shown willingness for.

If Ed Jovonovski, who lives here, played here and is/was friends with Bertuzzi won't come here, there's no chance in hell of luring a Peter Forsberg/Teemu Selanne/etc.

 

It's just a viscious cycle.

 

Panthers just need to open their wallet. You might need to overpay for a year or two, but if you can put together some decent teams then players might want to come here.

 

Yeah, sure I hope so, but if this team is going to go from what it is to "decent" (as in looking at the 4-6 seeds instead of hoping for the 8) they're going to have to spend a lot more than they've recently shown willingness for.

 

Oh i know it will take a drastic change. If they are going to pay for marginal free agents then we wont be going to the playoffs anytime soon. They will need to max out the cap for a few years and make the playoffs several times before anyone wants to go to the panthers. Just look at nashville. A few years ago no one wanted to go there, now they are looking good, and in a few years i am sure many players will want to go there,

If Ed Jovonovski, who lives here, played here and is/was friends with Bertuzzi won't come here, there's no chance in hell of luring a Peter Forsberg/Teemu Selanne/etc.

 

It's just a viscious cycle.

 

 

jovo didn't sign here because we didn't offer enough money. we offered him around $5million - phoenix offered him $6.75.

 

they overpaid grossly - but that's what free agency is. martin and cohen just need to realize that they're going to have to bite the bullet and overpay a couple of players. hopefully for our sake, they choose the right ones because they'll be playing with fire. giving the wrong guy a multiyear deal of those proportions could set this franchise back another half-dozen years.