The point is that the team trading the better player rarely 'wins' the deal on paper. If every deal that is remotely comparable seems like a fleecing, then that just tells you what the market actually is.
We can come up with myriad reasons why Johnny is different, but the return for pretty much every good-very good winger has been pretty underwhelming in recent years:
Panarin/Pacioretty/Stone (as recently discussed)
Duchene (hybrid)
Skinner
Eberle
Kessel (coming off really strong years in PIT)
Tatar (to VGK)
Hall
Saad v1.0
Kessel (from TOR)
Aside from Kessel/Stone/Panarin, it's interesting to note that nearly all of the guys above were traded after a down season.
Gaudreau is better than all of the guys above, but not by as much as we'd like to think in many cases. Johnny's return would be better, but not that much better.
More importantly, the non-existence of any trades involving players closer to Johnny's calibre is simply indicative that other teams are not willing to 'overpay' for a single player anymore. So, you either hold on to your player while clinging to false hope, chase some magic beans, or resign yourself to a player downgrade that you think fits your roster (and or cap situation) better.
Of course you can hold on until the last TDL and recover what you can then, but IMO that is clinging to false hope while wasting prime years of Tkachuk/Lindholm/Monahan/Gio on good contracts. Then again, we are heading in to a crapshoot tournament, so our odds are as good as they will ever be.
|