Quote:
Originally Posted by Textcritic
I'm late to this part of the discussion, but I wanted to add some clarity to this idea of "being in the driver's seat," which I do not believe Yzerman to be in his handling of Drouin.
It is true, there is no current urgency for him to trade Drouin, and that he will be entertaining multiple offers. But at the end of the day, this is a situation in which he is at the outset handicapped by the fact that everyone knows a lot about the circumstances behind Drouin's availability. This is likely to drive the price down, even among GMs who will be bidding against one another.
"In the driver's seat," in my opinion, means basically that one is entertaining offers to sell for over market value, and I do not believe that accurately describes Yzerman and Drouin. He will get a fine return, but almost certainly less than he would receive under different circumstances. In other words, Yzerman will not be able to maximise Drouin's value, which effectively means that he will have to take the best of a number of offers that he likely would not entertain under different conditions. If Yzerman is being victimised by mitigating factors which affect the value of his asset, then he most certainly is not "in the driver's seat." The market is. The market that is set by the bidders who all have a pretty good idea of what all the offers are going to look like.
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Before the Johansen trade I would have agreed with you. But I also felt that Columbus had zero leverage in that situation, and were able to extract Seth Jones from David Poile.
Given this, and the demand by over a dozen teams inquiring on Drouin, I would very much characterize Yzerman being in the driver's seat. After all, he does not
have to trade Drouin.