Quote:
Originally Posted by ComixZone
It’s weird to me that same scouting staff that spotted Derek Ryan, also thought Troy Brouwer and James Neal were good signings.
The underlying numbers of Ryan were effectively the exact opposite of those of Brouwer and Neal.
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We need to understand the context of those deals. In both cases, management identified a lack of secondary scoring as a need, and lack of toughness and edge as another. Look at who was available as UFAs in those years and ask who you think would have been better choices to fit those needs. Also consider that Ryan Reaves had accepted an offer from the Flames before the Neal signing was made - which would have made the Neal signing impossible. But Vegas matched, leaving Treliving to move on to plan B (or C).
When GMs make UFA signings or trades they don’t have a menu of every player in the league to choose from. They have a specific need, and a handful of players or partners to choose from to fill that need. It isn’t obvious to me that there were a lot of better options out there to fill those needs at the time.
The bigger issue is that trying to fill out important needs on your roster with UFA signings or picks-for-players trades is usually a sign of impatience and/or a weak prospect pool. Treliving went out and spent a lot of resources to get Brouwer, Hamonic, and Neal because he needed to upgrade the roster
now, and there was no help coming from the farm team. He had decided to stake his bets on the Gaudreau-Monahan-Giordano core and rapidly build around it to take a few shots at the Cup before the team had to move on from Gaudreau.
He gambled and lost. But to my mind, the mistake wasn’t so much the deals he made for that gamble, as the fact he felt he needed to gamble and go for it with that core in the first place.