Quote:
Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov
To this day I will never understand why we paid so much for Hamonic. Didn't he want a trade out of the Isle to come to Western Canada? We had the leverage.
To get Hamonic we should have given up a 1st, or 2 2nds. Not all 3!
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Not going to say the Hamonic deal was a good one, it wasn't.
You miss the point though. Yes, it is true that Hamonic had asked for a trade, perferrably to Western Canada. IIRC that did not materialize right away and he ended up staying in NY for another season, or the remainder of it.
Did Treliving have the leverage? well if the case was the Islanders were only talking to the Flames, then maybe but from what I have heard was the Islanders were talking to other teams as well. Meaning the Flames had to beat those other teams offers to get the player. The specific rumor I heard was it was between the Leafs and the Flames and the Leafs offer was a 1st round pick and JVR who was headed into his UFA season. So the price the Flames paid seems commensurate with what the Leafs offer was.
In hindsight, it was a lot to pay and the timing of it in relation to the state of the team was not good. That said you can see what Treliving was trying to do; he wanted a high calibre blue line that was going to be together for a while. Gio-Brodie-Hamilton-Hamonic. You could argue the strategy failed and the timing was not good but the principle behind it was solid.