Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
It's obvious because it's been stated that he wanted to play at home and that he accepted a contract type that is usually reserved for career AHLers. I realize that he didn't turn down offers of $4 million a season from teams but but I have a very hard time believing that this was the best offer on the tabled. The guy isn't a Flame anymore so can some of you bandwagon haters please focus your efforts on the next whipping boy already? The played out opinion of how bad he was isn't required in this discussion.
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Wanting to play at home and exclusively signing with St. Louis are two different things. You're stating he narrowed his list down to 1 team which is far from "obvious" and I would say flat out wrong:
In his own words:
http://www.stltoday.com/sports/hocke...11c451cb9.html
Quote:
Butler said signing a two-way contract was made easier because it was the Blues.
"It is tough, just the uncertainty of things," he said. "But if there was a place that I'd be willing to do it, it was obviously St. Louis. This may not be the way I had free agency panning out. You look around the league and see some of the deals being thrown around, it would be nice to have one of those. But at the end of the day, I couldn't be more excited to be a member of the organization."
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Things were not going well for Butler in free agency, he's admitted as much. He got an opportunity with his hometown team and took it, which is great for him if it works out. But that doesn't mean there was significant offers on the table, he's pretty much came right out and said there wasn't.
I have no ill-will against Butler as a person, if he finds his groove in St. Louis I wont be upset but the fact is he was not a hot commodity this free agency period based on his previous couple years of play.
Back up your proof that he was only willing to sign in St. Louis with some facts please. Otherwise I'll take Chris' own words that he was hoping to get paid more as fact but didn't have the opportunity. (And sure maybe one team had like a 700,000 offer on the table or something, but I'd be willing to bet a significant amount there wasn't a million dollar plus contract on the table if it was possible to find that out...)