Quote:
Originally Posted by nobles_point
If any of these trades are “wins” they’re still a long ways away from embarrassing the other team that made them to the point where they won’t deal with the Flames anymore.
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This.
In the Lindholm etc. trade, one side winning was always going to be a possibility, but a lot of things had to happen before this started to look like such a huge win for the Flames.
In an alternate reality, it's Lindholm who suffers a conccussion and Ferland who takes a big step forward, finds consistency and chemistry with Carolinas first line and starts putting up 35 goals per season. Then Fox signs in Carolina and becomes a star defenseman while Hanifin never quite fullfills his potential, ending up as a nice #3 D-man but no more. Haven't even mentioned Hamilton there, who had the potential to be excellent under the right circumstances.
The trade was fine on paper the day it was made, both ways. I could still turn out just fine for Carolina. Nobody got fleeced.
Flames getting overpayment for Glencross wasn't a fleecing either, it was a deadline auction and that was the highest offer. There were very likely other interested teams, and Glencross falling on his face THAT badly was I'm sure a surprise to most. The guy had scored at .5 PPG or better for seven seasons in a row, and was still on that pace at the time of the trade. (It's still one of the most abrupt ends to a career I can think of that wasn't because of an injury.) I doubt other GM's give credit to Treliving for this, it was just the Capitals overpaying for too much risk and getting burnt.
Point being, trades are always bets, you win some and lose some. What separates the good from the bad is putting in the homework to really know what you're betting on, and knowing what bets are worth the risk. Unless you're clearly deceitful, I don't think there's really such a thing as fleecing another GM. Occasionally you end up taking advantage of someone's stupidity, but that's on them, not you.
Taylor Hall for Adam Larsson for example wasn't so much a good trade by New Jersey as it was a terrible trade by the Oilers. Or at least that's how I think GM's are looking at it.