Quote:
Originally Posted by Flames Draft Watcher
Yep those picks we got for Glencross sure turned into trash (part of Dougie Hamilton) and man giving up on the season really cost us there as we got to the 2nd round without him.
UFA status is a reality that Treliving deals with. He can lose players for nothing, sign them or he can trade them. 2nd and 3rd round picks are far from trash. He can use them to pick excellent prospects or he could trade them for established NHLers. They are a valuable commodity, the exact opposite of trash in fact. Assuming they are trash is a slap to the face of our scouts who have shown themselves to be quite solid in the past 5 drafts IMO.
Losing all our UFAs for nothing and still missing the playoffs = more trash than trading them for picks.
I doubt most would advocate trading away all our UFAs if we're still in the playoff race but its starting to look like we'll fall out and some of the guys we're talking about trading we're not going to be significantly worse off without. And dealing guys near the end of the season allows us to audition young players for the season after which can be very useful in the long term development of said players and the continuing progression of the team. Right now we've got 7 guys who can play top 6 defense in the NHL and a guy in the minors who can probably play top 6-7 right now as well. So Treliving can certainly deal a defenseman and not really miss him.
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There's 4 scenarios:
1) Buy rentals and go full out for a playoff run - The risky and costly approach
2) Keep UFAs and try to make the playoffs - This provides no assets to build from
3) Sell UFAs and try to make the playoffs - This yields the most assets but sends the worst message to the locker room.
4) Keep some, sell some and try to make the playoffs - The balanced approach
Ideally you want to sell all your pending UFAs without sending a bad message to the locker room, but realistically there's going to be a balanced approach