I would sign him, provided it is a reasonable 2 year contract and we don't have another major defenseman signing that pushes him out.
1) I don't think he's nearly as bad as some people keep repeating.
2) During this year, I think a big element has been the learning by the players and the building of the team. Stability is important to that. If you just start taking people out, it leaves gaps and undermines the stability you need. Better to transition (re-sign, let him play, then trade) then to just drop him.
3) Injuries are inevitable, so no sense in rolling with 6 defensemen. If Brodie, Giordano or Smid go out for a stretch next year, we don't have a prospect that we can smoothly fit into the line-up. And by fit, I mean allow them to enter the line-up the way all the rookies have to date: play solid in abby, put your time in, and come up for a cup of coffee to see if you stick. Otherwise, just bringing up Sieloff or Breen and hope they can just jump in and cover a 15 game absence of one of our top 3 d-men is a pipe dream. You need at least 2 prospects that *seem* ready in Abby in order to cover one gap on the parent team... that's basically what happened with Breen and Wotherspoon: one failed, the other (so far) succeeded. We don't have another 2 that we can yet put to the same test.
|