Quote:
Originally Posted by Vinny01
Stone wasn’t necessarily signing here and he is starting to look like a brutal contract for Vegas with his injuries.
The biggest bullet dodged by the org was the rumored Taylor Hall trade pre-pandemic where he needed to sign an extension. Likely a 9.5-10M player and that would have totally screwed the team.
I think the Brouwer signing was a poor choice as the team likely wasn’t ready to contend at the time and he came here to retire. When the Flames signed Neal I admittedly liked it because they lacked a top 6 forward. Horrible in hindsight but coming in off 2 straight finals runs and 10 years of scoring at least 20 gave me hope we would get 3 good years out of that deal. Definitely wrong
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According to Friedman, the Flames were confident that he would sign but Treliving didn't want to include Valimaki in the trade.
https://www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/...e-sweepstakes/
And there's no way to know how Stone's injuries would have played out here. As it stands it was a huge missed opportunity to acquire some real game-breaking talent because of a mistake in assessing your own talent, though it's true that part of what ailed Valimaki here was injury.
It's true that the team needed a top 6 FWD, but how does hockey ops settle on Neal? Completely abysmal pro scouting.