Quote:
Originally Posted by Jacks
Treliving took over a recently blown up club that should have been in the middle of a rebuild, it had a core that included:
Giordano - 30yrs
Backlund - 25yrs
Monahan - 19yrs
Brodie - 24yrs
And a bunch of good veterans like Hudler, Cammalleri, Stajan, Russell, Glencross, Byron, Wideman, etc.
The only less than desirable contracts were:
Stajan 3.125M x 4yrs
Jones 4M x 2yrs
I guess some people might include Wideman but he was playing well at the time.
Some might also include Smid but he got injured which didn't hurt the team capwise.
There was also O'Brien as a buried contract for 1 more year at 2M.
Considering the team was rebuilding, none of these contracts were a problem.
In the pipeline he had:
Gaudreau
Baertschi
Ferland
Kulak
Jankowski
Brossoit
And a bunch of other prospects that didn't pan out, some highly rated.
With 27M in cap space (71M cap), no boat anchor contracts, a fan base that accepted the rebuild and low expectations he walked into a pretty sweet position to build from. He also had all of his draft picks including the upcoming 4th overall.
Let's not pretend he had to clean up a mess, the mess is entirely of his creation.
|
I don’t disagree entirely with this post but there are things stated that I do.
1. I don’t really agree the team is a mess like you state in your last sentence
2. Cammalleri was a UFA and not a veteran that was inherited
3. Wideman, Stajan, Glencross were veterans but I disagree they were good
4. Monahan, Gaudreau and the 4th pick were assets that were going to make an impact right away but many of those other prospects were busts
5. Agree that Gio, Brodie and Backlund were nice core pieces that came from Sutter to help build around
I guess one of the things Feaster did well enough was clean the cap sheet as you mentioned but he ailed miserably to get anything of value for our previous star players. Nothing worthwhile for Regehr, Kipper, Iginla, Bouwmeester, Cammalleri, Tanguay.
He took over a team with a clean slate and some intriguing pieces that had missed the playoffs 5 years in a row. He guided that team to the playoffs in 4 of 6 years. Even with this bad start to the year I have believed this team will make the playoffs for the third straight year and 5 out of 7 seasons.
This is a team with 6 of their top 7 forwards aged 22-27, 3 of their top 5 D are 24 or younger, they have a solid goaltending tandem and do not have a player on the roster that makes more than $7M in a season. Lucic is a brutal contract but that is it for this team.
I have not got nearly as low on this team as many on this forum have this year so I just don’t agree a mess has been created. To me this team has a single boat anchor contract. I disagree with New Era’s notion the farm system is a mess. Pelletier and Zary likely are on this team sooner than later and we still have some other intriguing guys in Philips, Wolf, Pettersson. I think the Hamonic and Lazar trades were among his biggest missteps though as those 2 deals resulted in a lack of a 2nd rounder for 3 years and a 1st rounder in what would turn out to be a 12th overall pick.