Quote:
Originally Posted by Cali Panthers Fan
On the flip side, this team (by the fans I assume you meant?) is far too hard on a player when they hit a rough patch or a cold stretch. See: any Flame player this year. Hell, we just finished a bunch of fan-proposed trades to ship out Monahan, Gaudreau, Hamilton, Brodie, and Giordano. Do more than 1 of those things and you're talking rebuild and a terrible team.
Quite frankly, I don't put much stock in what happens over a short course of games, I look at the season overall and progress from season to season. If the criticism is "Backlund wasn't as good as last year", then I can agree with that to a certain extent. If the criticism is "Backlund sucks now that he got paid", then I think that's total B.S. and we worry far too much about value of a contract. You can't control what the market allows, and you can't trade away every player the minute they reach a level that allows them to get paid properly, or perhaps a little more than they currently deserve to make up for previous underpayment. That's how it works in the NHL and we have to stop worrying about every single dollar. Provided we aren't slammed up against the cap every year with no room to maneuver, it doesn't matter in the grand scheme of things.
Is Backlund still a valuable player? You betcha. That's all that matters. We need to put a better supporting cast around our good players, and things should get better at that point.
Oh, and get a new coaching staff. This group is toast.
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Unfortunately in a salary capped world I have to raise my expectations for Backlund with his new salary. I agree he's a valuable player, but is that value worth $5.3mil? I don't think it is. I think he outperformed his last contract but does not live up to his new one.
And no, I did mean the team, not the fans. I'm strongly against trading players like Johnny, Monahan, and Hamilton. What I'm not opposed to, however, is trading a guy like Backlund (pre-extension while his value was still sky high) or dare I say even Giordano. I doubt the Predators wanted to trade Weber, but they made the hard decision to get younger and turn the team over to their young players and it's turned them from a bubble team into an elite franchise.
That doesn't necessarily mean I think the Flames should start shopping Giordano right away but when you look at his age and contract it might be best to move on sooner rather than later.