Quote:
Originally Posted by traptor
The thing about the canes letting them walk for nothing is that they're a legit contender.
They're not going to trade 2/4 of their top 4 dman before playoffs to another playoff team to use as rentals. They were their rentals in a way.
Then since they're UFAs they just replaced them with better value UFAs.
As the flames inch closer to the finish line in a playoff spot, I've come around to not trading him this year.
But we should recoup assets in the summer if he's not willing to sign a very team friendly deal.
Try to target a better value UFA.
Sign someone like Marcus petterson to a 4 year deal. It would work as a better stop gap then Andersson for 8 years.
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This might be controversal but I think they were always a bit of a "Secondary" contender.
They were never as talented as Tampa, Florida, Boston and to a lesser extent the Rangers. They are a great regular season team, and beat up on the teams in the Metro that also lack talent (Islanders).
But when they faced the true class of the Eastern Conference they would lose.
18-19: Boston - 4-0 sweep
19-20: Boston - 4-1 loss
20-21: Tampa - 4-1 loss
21-22: Rangers: 4-3 loss
22-23: Panthers: 4-0 sweep
23-24: Rangers: 4-2 loss
A great team...but IMO because they either didn't move those guys to gain assets, or keep them even though it wasn't the best long term decision, they kind of landed in a spot where they were really good but never great.
That 21-22 team that had all of Teravainen, Niederreiter, Trocheck, Pesce, and replaced Hamilton with DeAngelo for a single season, was their best shot at the cup.
And not that they should have kept all of them...but that team with at least 1-2 of Hamilton, Teravainen, Pesce, Trocheck, etc would be closer to a true contender right now IMO. And I think they know it too...they tried hard to add Tkachuk, then Guentzel, and now are looking hard at Miller...they know they need another game changer.
However I agree with your sentiment...trading Andersson and focusing that money on signing one of Chychrun, Pettersson, Gavrikov, etc would be the ideal outcome as a UFA.
Recoup the assets, but repurpose the $$$ to keep a veteran d-man available. And ideally it's a LH shot to anchor the LH side because you have Weegar to anchor the RH side, and a lot of good young pieces on the left (Parekh, Mews, Brzustewicz).