Quote:
Originally Posted by Five-hole
Jokinen went from a 91 point, +18 player to a 71 point, -19 player who was traded by Florida. Phoenix dumped him after 57 games. He wasn't the most popular player in the dressing room. He had zero ability to use his linemates, and we were ostensibly getting him to play with Iginla. He played in an uber-weak division, couldn't get his team anywhere near the playoffs, and had never played in a meaningful game in the NHL, much less in the playoffs. Some said the Zednik incident changed him forever -- he certainly was a shell of the player we thought we were getting.
That Brad Stuart wanted to sign in California was the worst kept secret in the NHL. We traded a lynchpin in our dressing room and a player in Kobasew who went on to have back-to-back 20-20-40 seasons and was pretty serviceable (until he ran into injury trouble) for a guy who didn't want to sign here and a guy we ended up having to pay a 2nd round pick just to get rid of (Wayne Primeau). This trade was bleepin' awful.
What do both of those have in common? A failure by Sutter (and/or his pro scouts) to do their due diligence on these guys.
I might give you Stralman, but he looked like a good young defenseman who was traded "as a favor to him" because he wanted more playing time than he'd get on our third pair, IIRC. Yeah, that he'd become a top-pairing D-man was unlikely at that point, but it was a good young asset given away for pretty much zilch.
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We'll have to disagree about Jokinen. He had just come off back to back 90 point years (well 89 the one year), you don't score those sort of points without using your teammates. He and had a down year at 71 points and that's not uncommon for star players. Even Iginla had a few below PPG years in his prime. Pheonix was a garbage team and Jokinen still finished 2nd in team scoring despite only playing 57 games for them the whole year. We had the opportunity to snag a #1 centre at the trade deadline, a need this team has had for years. At the time, it was a reasonable gamble that a 30 year old #1 centre in his prime would rebound to his historical play, and not fall off a cliff. I don't put that on Darryl, that falls 100% on Jokinen.
The Stuart trade was a big risk which bit us hard, but that's the price you pay for trying to win. Do I wish the trade wasn't made in hindsight? Of course. You can't replace a guy like Andrew Ference, especially with one who didn't want to be here. But Stuart was 100% a better hockey player than Ference and he gave us a better chance of winning that year than Andrew Ference. It's one of those trades that if they work out, you look like a genius, and if it doesn't you can't find a hole deep enough to hide in.