Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
In hindsight it looks like Gross handled this a lot worse than Treliving did.
It's not like the Flames are getting much value back even if they have a firm deadline and can trade his rights. All that means is we know Gaudreau's status earlier and the Flames maybe get a 3rd back for his rights.
It looks like the mistake they may have made was not letting him talk to other teams to gauge his market, and let him do that while you still have the advantage of the 8th year. Oilers did that with Kane and it appears it worked in their favour.
But that's with the benefit of hindsight.
If they let him do that and he goes and signs for 7 x $12M somewhere else then I'd be blasting him for letting Gaudreau talk to teams and giving away his negotiating leverage.
But with hindsight we can see now that the market was soft and that maybe he stays here if he knows the best offer out there is 7 x $9.75 from Columbus. that the Flyers don't even come to the table, and that the Flames offer is the best by $15M.
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There's no hindsight needed to know that the Flames would have certainly benefitted big time from knowing it was over 5 days, two weeks or however many days in advance of yesterday's deadline. They would have at least had time to prepare for the events of yesterday and possibly make a signing or trades that benefit the franchise. Instead they were all clearly shell shocked, otherwise they would have done something notable to start patching holes.
As you say, a deadline may have also worked in Calgary's favour if Gaudreau was able to come back to the table after a week of testing the waters. All in all it was bush league from the Flames and somewhat Gaudreau's camp. When you are the one standing to lose the asset as Treliving was, you need to take the reins and I don't see any instance of that happening. It certainly should have been the case last summer.