Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
Good teams lose good players to expansion.
Anaheim lost Shea Theodore, who is both a good player and a player I have confidently said is not better than Oliver Kylington and been ridiculed for that opinion.
Nashville after the SCF lost Neal, who at the time was still considered a top 6F.
If we are in a situation fortunate enough where Valimaki, Andersson, Kylington, AND Hanifin are players we simply can't win without, we will be such a good team that losing a good player won't matter. Far more likely is that some of these cracks we see in these guys - Hanifin's poor reads, Andersson's inability to reacquire the puck in the Dzone, Valimaki's less than stellar point production, Kylington's less than stellar netfront play, are here to stay. We will be lucky if one of these four young guys is a bonafide top pairing guy in 2021 and beyond. Right now our roster has two, arguably even three defensemen who legitimately can handle top competition and suffocate the opponent when they are on the ice - Giordano, Hamonic, Brodie and we are spoiled by that (though the Hamonic acquisition came at a huge expense and I still disagree with it overall due to the long term implications). But look at the league, there are far more guys like Ben Hutton and Adam Larsson and Dion Phaneuf and Karl Alzner and Jonas Brodin and Olli Maata - guys who were prococious talents in their early twenties, who were still decent top 4 guys, yet got passed by previously no name guys, when it came to actually playing a big role on good teams and their flaws exposed.
I think we have some great young defensemen but being a "must protect defenseman" is no sure thing. Even Hanifin has not looked like a "must protect" defenseman even with his impressive offensive output.
There are also ways to game an expansion draft. Trade a proven piece like Hanifin for an unproven, but high-end expansion exempt player, maybe even a Cale Makar or Evan Bouchard. Trade our 2022 1st for Seattle to take Neal's contract off our hands. Etc.
Exposing your captain (who you rave about for his off ice stuff) just doesn't make sense, even if he is old and expensive.
|
There may be some points being missed here. Gio has goodwill that translates to ‘value to owner’ for the Flames (Captain, community, backstory etc...), but wouldn’t translate to value for Seattle (imho). I’m sure Gio wouldn’t be stoked about going to Seattle at 38 either. Seattle will know this too and I believe wouldn’t be interested in a grumpy Gio for two years of (likely) declining impact.
If it comes to that, I fully expect BT to offer a mid-round draft pick (packaged appropriately) to Seattle in exchange for the promise not to take Gio. But if BT protects a 38 year old over a career-prime 25 year old, then I’ll be very critical.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk