D-men and Dubi

Preseason stuff coming in a second post; I was afraid of talking too much in this one. Some interesting thoughts from Torts out in the Post today. Basically, his mentality seems to be that ideally, to start the season, our third pair won't be two neophytes from Hartford: instead, it will be one neophyte from Hartford and one veteran we try to find somewhere. We'll carry an additional Wolf as our seventh. The reasoning goes something like "Staal and Girardi keep playing to make us forget that they're like 12 years old, which is great and all, but they're still like 12 years old." And honestly, do you want Wade Redden and Michael Rozsival to be your only veteran defensemen? So, I can kinda get behind that idea - as long as it's some 3rd-pair big guy who is signed for his desire to check people, not his ability to quarterback the Power Play. So, we're on the hunt for another vet, and 2 young D-men will be 6 and 7, to start the season. Cool. Dangerous-sounding in the past, sure, but it's a new guy at the helm, and I'm OK with it.

Brooks brings up an interesting point in his article about the above, which is that Dubinsky seems like the right market value for a defenseman of this caliber. Uh oh. Here comes the stupid train. Someone please sign a contract. I don't care if it's for $700,000 or $1.4 million or 400 gold pieces and 24 cattle. Someone sign a fucking contract. Get it done.

Sather gave MSG a brief interview on the subject which basically states what those of us coming to his defense have said:

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At this stage in Brandon's career, he is a restricted free agent: it's the only time in his career that the team has any strength in negotiating a contract. He has no arbitration rights; next year, he'll have arbitration rights. If he has a good year, you know, who knows what he'll end up with? And I think he's making a mistake by not being here and learning from all the other players what it's going to take to be committed to win in this organization. And if he decides that he doesn't want to come back, after November 1, if he's not here, he can't play in the NHL. So, it's a little foolish right now.
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Which brings me to the "then what?" conversation. Sure, Dubi may be cutting off his nose to spite his face here, but at the end of the day, losing him leaves a pretty big hole. To paraphrase my father, for a team with a lot of centers, we sure don't seem to have any centers. The simple answer is that we somehow trade Dubinsky away for a comparable first-line center.

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Yeah, I thought not. More likely we pick up a third-pair defenseman, like Torts is looking for. Then who are our centers? Probably 4 of Drury, Prospal, Boyle, Anisimov, and Grachev. Five 2nd-through-4th-line centers, no first-line centers. Sound like last year to anyone else? Do all our hopes land on our silent-but-silent captain taking up the reins?

Insert chicken-with-its-head-cut-off joke here.