Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
It's pretty obvious the Hurricanes (Dudley/Waddell) don't feel Lindholm is worth the money he was expecting on his next contract which was why he was put up for offers. I expect with Hanafin they were probably staring at paying him similar money to Hamilton so why not get the better player in Hamilton if you are going to pay $5+ million anyway? I doubt ether player was a problem but the Hurricanes didn't see them as core players moving forward and feel they got the best player in Hamilton and maybe another core piece with Fox as well as a nice complementary winger in Ferland. Easy to see why they would make this trade if they weren't sold on Lindholm. Flames fans painting Hamilton as a problem or saying he's terrible defensively are doing the typical Canadian fan bashing players on the way out so none of this is surprising especially seeing how many fans willfully jumped on the Eric Francis article bandwagon that guys like Monahan, Gaudreau, Hamilton, etc were okay with losing.
I feel this is a trade that can work for both teams as if Hanafin can maintain 40 point pace and Lindholm improve on last season and become a 50 point player the Flames should be better or at the very least no worse. Hamilton will be put in a situation in Carolina where he's going to probably put up close to career numbers and if Ferland can get more consistency he could be a nice surprise for them. Fox is probably the X factor as if he becomes a star then the trade probably doesn't look as good but I imagine he was never going to play for the Flames so his value in a trade would diminish as the Flames got closer to losing him for nothing.
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I don't agree with the bolded part. Just because they wouldn't sign them, doesn't mean they didn't think they are core pieces. Core pieces get traded all the time. Gretzky got traded. They just liked Hamilton as a core piece more than Lindholm and Hanifin.
Hamilton IS terrible defensively and i've been saying this well before he got traded. The giveaway/takeaway differential says it all. No one on the Flames was even close to that, not even the hated Brodie. You want to know something interesting about this stat? No Carolina Hurricane defensemen had a lower differential than -10; this Hurricanes team was lauded as playing a possessiono style game and it certainly looks like it from this stat. I doubt Peters would have been happy with a defensemen with a -40 differential; that goes against everything of what possession hockey is, and you really don't need a whole bunch of muddled advanced stats that have not been proven to tell you that.
It is now TWO NHL management teams who have watched Hamilton day in and day out and have concluded that he's not as good as his perceived value. One of these management teams is responsible for building a power house in the East.
I really don't think the off-ice is that big an issue to the Flames; as not every player has to be super happy in their surroundings. If they saw what I saw from Hamilton in the defensive end, that's enough reason to deal him.