Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Random
Don't butter me up. Harrumph! 
I know I have that habit, and I'm sorry about it. Part of the trouble is, I cut my teeth on Usenet back in the day, which meant spotty moderation or none at all, and frequent wall-to-wall flamewars. This place is Shangri-La by comparison – but there are enough meltdowns and enough flamewars that I never feel quite at home, and I often feel like I have to be adversarial or be mocked right off the board. I apologize for being so abrasive, but I may never really be able to cure it.
That said, I really don't think Hanifin should be traded, for two reasons. First, wing is nowhere near as important a position as defence, and second, the Flames are not as strong on defence as they look. The top six are really solid, but they're one injury away from having to play some really questionable depth players. And we still don't know how Tanev will hold up after his surgery. I hope it's not another Monahan situation, but you never know.
Rather than acquire a big-ticket winger, and then give up even more assets to shed Lucic's cap hit, I'd much prefer to add a cheaper second-line forward like Kessel or Rodrigues and save the team's assets. |
This makes alot of sense and I respect that outlook. Generally I agree with you about the importance of each position vs. the other.
However when I recommended the idea of trading a D and specifically Hanifin, its not because I value wing over D, its because of who our competition is/how we stack up, the type of player I think Hanifin can fetch (a mid 20 year old top 6) and the addition of a supremely talented player like Weegar.
At the end of the day we are in win now mode. Is that top 6 and specifically that right wing going to serve us well in a dual with Colorado and Edmonton? I don't think so. If our D plays lights out vs. either team, do we have the forward power to beat either Colorado/Edmonton (at this current point)? I'm not sure, its 50/50, unfortunately McDavid is that good and we all know against us the oilers get all the calls. Thus I think we need to close the gap and I don't think Kessel and Rodriguez do that.