Quote:
Originally Posted by ComixZone
Yeah, it really does. I mean Gaudreau is a PPG player on an absolutely offensively starved team.
Gaudreau carried Ferland around all season. Gaudreau carried a broken Monahan up and down the ice for a good chunk of time.
I'm not outright opposed to trading Johnny - as it would be a hell of a return, but it's such a slippery slope to trade away the good players on a team to fix the problems.
Get rid of the passengers. Get rid of the cookie cutter emotionless garbage hockey players.
Where the hell was Backlund, Frolik, Brouwer, Brodie, and Stone all season long? Where the hell was Mike Smith after the all-star break? Ferland showed what he is this year, and he can't be on the 1st line going forward because he's not consistent enough to be a player in that role.
Bennett, Jankowski, Hathaway, Lazar - all young developing players who bounced up and down as you expect young, non-elite players to do.
If we can cash-out on Backlund, Frolik, Brouwer, Brodie, and Stone this summer we're better off. Those are the "emotionally unengaged" players.
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I don't agree with your Backlund comments at all but to me at issue is what kind of team Treliving wants. If he's adamant on a team that grinds out 2-1 games he likely keeps Gulutzan and trades out skilled players.
If his design is to make this team in the mold of Arizona teams where it was built around Smith and the d corps then this will get ugly.
When he started he had a bunch of skilled yet undersized players and you would often hear him say - how do we make it fit?
Well you can see how the roster has transformed - what he thought was needed and you see the results. Obviously there were spurts of winning hockey but it was really spurts. To build a consistent winner in the game today, you need speed and skill (not streaks of hot goaltending and just enough scoring).
He seemingly values intangibles over skill and if correct that is extremely disconcerting.