[Karl]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

While I generally agree with all of this, the flip side is that if you take too much of a hard line on him, he is probably gone in 2 years. And remember, the Flames already gave him one show-me contract - and he absolutely did show them with a fantastic season.

Yes, he's a bottom 6er. But if he proves that the 15 goals wasn't a one-time, shooting percentage thing, then he is really difficult to replace and we've lost a really valuable player.

One other point...

While I completely agree about bottom 6ers being replaceable, there are certain heart and soul guys that define teams and are not replaceable. I think of guys like Bobby Nystrom and Butch Goring. They defined the Islanders. Bob Gainey never scored more than 15 goals in a season but was one of the most important players on the late 70s Habs.

I am not saying that Bouma is as good, or as valuable, as those players. What I am saying is that he brings something to the team, other than his bottom 6 role, that helps shape and define the team.

And that is extremely hard to replace.

Wikipedia disagrees with the bolded.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Gainey