Quote:
Originally Posted by NiklasSundblad
After Darren Haynes and I just had a twitter exchange about how far superior Vegas' bottom 6 is to ours, I have come to the conclusion that Treliving should probably be fired for it.
Dean Lombardi sure looks good right now.
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The bottom six IMO, is the biggest reason this team failed.
It's not all Trelivings fault though, as the 2013 and 2014 drafts really bombed. Those drafts, especially 2013 with 2 late first rounders (afetr the Mony pick at 6th) both used on forwards, is where we should have been able to get a lot of cheap depth from. Then it was compounded by dealing Granlund for Shinkaruk and a 2nd for Lazar. That equates to 2 firsts and 2 seconds on not one high end NHL player to show for it, just 3 AHLers and a bottom six forward who had 2 ####ing goals this season.
I know Treliving was here for the 2014 draft, but had just barely been hired so I cut him slack on that one. Besides, it's our 4th overall pick that should have been leading the charge on this one anyways, and Bennett was a no brainer at the time. Meanwhile, we get Hunter Smith while Anaheim gets Brandon Montour and Boston gets Ryan Donato. We get Brandon Hickey while Tampa gets Brayden Point and Nashville gets Viktor Arvidsson. Is it any wonder why these teams are elite while the Flames miss the playoffs?
Back to the bottom six fiasco, Stajan was already extended by Burke before BT got here, but BT's two biggest boners were signing Brouwer and losing Byron on waivers. You could also mention the Baertschi trade but Sven had already soured on the organization prior to BT getting here and forced his way out. When you think about Burke in the GM chair for about 8 months, its kind of scary. Besides the Stajan and Baertschi stuff, he also managed to give an ELC to stand out Dman Keegan flipping Kanzig in that time as well. This was literally only a few months after drafting him, when you have two years to evaluate and sign the guy. What foresight that was, wow. Frightening.
Another move BT made was trading Granlund. Granlund had a 19 goal season, and although his production dipped this year we would have been better off with him in the bottom six than guys like Hathaway or Lomberg or Glass. Not to mention Shinkaruk, who only played bottom six in Stockton.
Looking back, Versteeg getting hurt really hurt this teams bottom six forward group this year. But that's really kind of sad more than anything.
I give credit to BT though for things like learning from the Bouma disaster contract by not only buying him out when he flat lined, but also avoiding the same thing with arbitration eligible RFA bottom six forwards like Joe Colborne and Alex Chiasson.
The more you look at things, the more you start to see that maybe Burke should be turfed, BT should probably be the AGM that handles contract negotiations (he did an amazing job signing the core of this team to contracts below $7 million) and maybe somebody else should be handling the team building through trades and also UFA signings. Either that or the pro scouts should be sent packing through the same door Burke exits through.
Anyways, whatever the problem is they better get it figured out fast. The clock is already ticking and before you know it the core will be either too old, or running out of time on their current deals and looking for much bigger ones. Then all we'll have is a bunch of $10 million dollar players and no Cups to show for it. All because of a lack of quality bottom six forwards.