I'm not sure this trade is as lopsided as most seem to think. Certainly not the worst 1-for-1 trade in the past 30 years. Hall isn't as good as people think and Larsson isn't as bad. Reality is, and I've said this before, the oilers have to lose these trades if they want to make them. They obviously lost this one, player value-wise, but the trade had to be made and now it has.
This signals the beginning of the rebuild, what, v5.0? Did anyone other than CP predict that the golden boy 1stOA Hall would be traded before this sad-sack team had even a sniff of the playoffs? The Hall, RNH, Eberle era is over, their greatest achievement being that they suck so damn bad they were able to land McDingus, Draisatl, and Magnus Puljujarvi-Svensson or whatever his name is. Yakupov, obviously not even worth mentioning.
If Larsson hits his stride and lives up to his billing, this could be a big win for the oilers. Thankfully for Flames fans everywhere, NO ONE lives up to their potential when they play for the oilers. No one. The oilers, of all teams, developing a young, potential 1D? Yeah, I don't think so. He'll be thrown to the wolves shortly and will be traded for a forth rounder in a couple seasons, eventually winning the Masterton trophy a couple seasons after that.
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