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Post by JohnnyVerdun on Dec 16, 2002 13:01:23 GMT -5
Well, HabWest’s original point was that guys like Kilger, Zednik and Bulis – i.e. the big, fast, young, hardworking player – were not readily available. As you can see by my list, lots of these guys ARE available, with varying degrees of price. . Well, I disagree that the variation in "price" is all that great when you take out Dackell and a couple of other guys. But in any event, it's not a question of price so much as currency. The currency in all the deals you cited (a good 10 or 12 of them) was youth, cheaper players and decent picks (lots of 2nd, 3rd and 4th rounders). And how can you say the only point, or the important one, is that they were available, and then dismiss as irrelevant or as an entirely separate question what kind of assets teams wanted back for these players? It's like saying that Tony Amonte was available without considering how much money was available in a teams budget to pay for a UFA. Sure, Hecht and others like him were available, but it looks to me, judging by your list, that the teams dealing these guys who were arguably like Kilger, would not have been willing to part with them for Rucinsky or Savage. If you found three or four or five deals like the Malhotra one, where a team took back a Rucinsky or a Berezin for a young guy with upside, then I'd say "okay, these guys were available for what we were looking to give". But if it's the case that these guys were only available to Savard if he was prepared to (a) keep Savage and or Rucinsky; and (b) send decent picks like 2nds and 3rds back the other way, then I'd say that the comparison is one of apples to oranges.
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Post by JohnnyVerdun on Dec 16, 2002 13:05:31 GMT -5
*sigh*... I know where this thread is going...another kids vs veterans debate That's not where it's going at all. It's a question of whether a certain category of player was available to Savard for the kinds of players he was looking to deal last year. The question of which approach he ought to have taken is related, but this a question of whether, for those two playing cards (Savage and Rucinsky) the kind of guys you listed were available.
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Post by Ged on Dec 16, 2002 17:15:49 GMT -5
For me, during the Houle years, there was one kid that made me drool, and that was Zednik. Good size, with a gourgeous low center of gravity skating style, and a bloody cannon for a shot. I just loved to watch him play, and often said to myself " I'd love to have this chap patrolling the wing for the Habs". And bingo, one of Savards's first moves had me dancing in the streets. I was absolutely thrilled. Unfortunately, it gave me a "Savard must be God complex" seeing how the Habs had been systematically dismantled in the years prior.
Savard could make trades for a decade, but I don't think he'll ever top this one. I think this one and the Kilger trade gave fans unwarranted expectations as to what his future moves would look like. Personally I'd say Therrien and Savard are like oil and water. Savard appeared to want to rebuild the team with a youth movement, supplementing it with a good mix of veteran leadership. And Therrien wants to hang on to his one and only NHL coaching job, so he'll do whatever he thinks it takes to hang on to it, and that does not include developing the youth in the system adequately. And that is why I question Savard's direction at this point. He's put all the tools in place to have a semi-competitive team but there is no direction behind the bench, and ultimately AS has to take responsibility.
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Post by BadCompany on Dec 16, 2002 17:21:55 GMT -5
Well, again you are missing the point. I keep talking about building a team, and you are arguing about specific details. You keep saying that UFAs Savage and Rucinsky couldn’t have been traded for youngish, NHL players, but that is purely speculative on your part:
Sean O’Donnell for Willie Mitchell
Cliff Ronning for Jere Kharalati
Jiri Slegr for Yuri Butsayev
Lyle Odelein for Jaroslav Spacek
Sergie Zholtok for Chad Kilger
And so on.
But that’s not even important. What I was trying to say, was that Savard started off with what seemed like a brilliant idea – get younger, bigger, and faster. I liked it. Then he deviated. Why? Why couldn’t he have continued along these lines? I am not saying he had to trade Savage and Rucinsky for youth, but that he could have continued the general trend of acquiring bigger, faster, younger players.
Assumptions:
* Brian Savage and Martin Rucinsky, as UFAs were worth 4th round draft picks. Some will argue they were worth more, some will argue they were worth less. I’m going to say 4th rounders. I will assume that somebody, somewhere, would have given up a 4th for them.
* There is no timeline, and similar players could have been had at any time. When I say Mike Grier, I mean Grier-like player. Don’t come back and say “Grier was traded after Savage and Rucinsky.” I use Grier, because he is a concrete name, with a set value.
* Savard was going to continue with the bigger, faster, younger approach, building a team concept. I wouldn’t have gambled on Berezin, Audette or Czerkawski (though just for fun, I’ll say I make the Asham/Chow deal anyways), because none of them ever impressed me, and they would have been short term solutions at best anyways. I never thought they were the answer to begin with, and since I said so right from the beginning, I am not using hindsight. Audette, Berezin, and Czerkawski were not the types of players I would have gambled on, in the hopes they solved our “sniper” problem. Since we are talking about what I would have done, I can state with supreme conviction that I would have ignored them.
So…<br> We trade a 2nd and a 3rd rounder for Mike Grier (bigger, faster, younger).
We trade a 4th for Lubos Bartecko (bigger, faster, younger)
We trade Brian Savage for a 4th (mid-round pick for a UFA)
We trade Martin Rucinsky for a 4th (mid-round pick for a UFA – I’m ignoring Malhotra)
Montreal gets: Mike Grier, Lubos Bartecko, a 4th, a 4th.
Montreal gives up: Brian Savage, Martin Rucinsky, a 2nd, a 3rd, a 4th.
Is that so terrible? Really, the only thing of significance we give up is the second. Grier and Bartecko more than compensate for Savage and Rucinsky, the 3rd we give up is close enough to the 4th to be tolerable, and the other two 4th’s cancel each other out. We give up the 2nd to get cheaper, and have more potential.
Zednik – Koivu – Grier Gilmour – Perrault – Bartecko Bulis – Juneau – Dackell Petrov – Kilger – McKay
Czerkawski, Lindsay
Bigger, younger, faster, cheaper, and maybe (probably?) even better.
Go Richard Zednik!!
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Post by MPLABBE on Dec 16, 2002 17:38:57 GMT -5
BC are you the president of the Mike Grier fan club? ;D On the first line with K and Z? IMO, Grier is a Dackell with more size
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Post by JohnnyVerdun on Dec 16, 2002 18:06:14 GMT -5
Well, if it's any consolation, I get what you're saying and I've often said, by the way, that since I wasn't wedded to the idea of "playoff necessity" last year, these are the kinds of moves I'd have preferred personally. Having said that, I think the Caps overpaid for Grier, and in the long term I'd rather have Savard make those picks in the 2nd and 3rd round. As for Bartecko, he was off the market almost a year and a half ago. He went to Atlanta before the 2001 draft, rather than the 2002 draft. And he's an awful lot like Jan Bulis (not even as far along, although he had more success in St. Louis than Bulis had in Washingon. Still, I think Bulis is a better bet to be helping significantly two years from now.) Bartecko, btw, is I'm pretty sure a LWer. And last, at the time we made the two trades we keep coming back to (Savage and Rucinsky), we had no Koivu, and Zednick was on his way to a decent but hardly inspiring 22 goal season total. So what you've got listed as a lineup is a present day roster with one player who could've only been scooped up before the 2001 draft, and one player whose price was pretty steep in picks. Surem the lineup is cheaper, younger and tougher than than it is now, but...
In February, 2002, we looked like this (i can't remember the exact lines):
Savage/Perreault/Rucinsky Zednick/Gilmour/Petrov Bulis/Juneau/Dackell Odjick/Ribeiro/Brunet
Now, Savage and Rucinsky are both sucking, the pp stinks, and yet because of goaltending we're only losing games by one goal. We desperately need that pp goal when we get the chance. Gillet wants to go to the playoffs. That's your duty as GM. It's your job. Your boss has given you the drill and it's up to you to execute. So what do you do? Deal both Rucinsky and Savage for mid round picks while looking around for guys like Grier (the top gun of the bunch) and Bartecko and start offering up even better picks than you,re getting back for the twin discontented ones?
Maybe the answer is "this would never happen to me because id have stuck with the kilger model from day one, we'd already have Bartecko for a mid pick and we'd add Grier or somebody like him and go with that". But that would be a serious leap of faith, no? To ship the two proven NHL scorers in Rucinsky and Savage, and replace them with a guy like Bartecko -- a nice young player who may emerge but certainly couldn't have been counted on -- and Grier, a guy who's averaged about 13 goals a season in 6+ years in the league? I mean, you'd be paying dearly in valuable picks for a player whose got slightly more finish than Chad Kilger and who's going to be a ufa in 2 and a half years (I think), plus a guy who was no more proven than Jan Bulis. And these are the guys who're going to take you to the playoffs? And again, I know Berezin and Audette didn't get us to the post-season, but of course we didn't give up a second and a third (picks that got us Plekanec and Milroy, I believe). So in terms of really building for the future, are you better off?
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