Quote:
Originally Posted by Lanny_McDonald
Why would Calgary make this trade? The Flames already have a poor lineup on the blueline and removing a player like Andersson would certainly give them a minor league level group of defenders. Sure, they get another 1st round pick, but you're hoping that first round pick turns into an Andersson in three to five years. You think the last 20 games of the season was bad, remove another top four defenseman from than group and think about how bad it would be? I don't see the Flames moving another blueliner until they know they have a replacement in the fold.
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I agree with you, but I think it comes down as always to different assessments of players and also different predictions (hopes, might be more accurate) of what the Flames will do. I'm a big Andersson fan, so my take could be skewed, but as you said, making a move like that means we're hoping the pick will turn into an Andersson in 3-5 years, which is a Top 4 defenceman on the ice and off the ice, a guy with swagger and a proven leader on the team that players look to for guidance. Many on CP though seem to be down on Andersson and likely see him as a 4/5 guy, and if that's how they see him, then yeah, I can see why they want to move him. I just don't see how a current D group of Weegar-Miro, Kylington-Andersson, Solovyov-Pachal would be about the same when you remove Andersson, but I think others may feel that it wouldn't be much different.
Then there's the prediction/hoping part of it all. I'm basing my guess on the kinds of moves we'll see on things I've heard from Conroy, Huska and even hints from Steinberg. Conroy does not want to bottom out and as you've suggested, removing Andersson from the D group would accelerate that. Conroy has said that it's important for the Flames to not sow a losing culture on the team for multiple years and I also believe that removing Andersson would do that due to everything I mentioned before. My guess is that maybe the posters who are advocating these kinds of trades don't view the quality of the player the same way (in a signficant way) and they also don't believe that Conroy and others in the organization are being truthful when they said the things they've said over the last calendar year. Time will tell!