smithers joe

Agreed with AJ. Although I'd love to see Bluegar, I think he'll probably get a significant raise elsewhere.  Meanwhile, we have Suter and we'll probably need to see what we have in Raty.  

I've noticed him in a very good way too, Joe. Not sure what it'll cost to keep him so that's likely a factor (as others have pointed out). 

This is also why it's important that we keep all/most of our prospects.  With the inevitable cap crunch, we're going to need guys like Raty, Hirose, Silovs, and Podkolzin to potentially replace guys like Bluegar, Cole, DeSmith, and one of Garland/Kuzmenko if it comes down to it.  

Trading picks and prospects for "a missing piece" is all fun and games, but we saw what happened to the Canucks during the 2013/2014 season (and then the better part of the 9 seasons following that).   

Keeping Bluegar would be great but if we're destined to move on from him, or others, this is where our prospects will come in, and hence, ensuring that we don't fall off a cliff like the previous generation did.