[Southside]

Originally Posted by Aarongavey

Verbeek seems like a throwback GM who does not value getting young players signed to long term contracts and is willing to throw money at vets and overpay them for past results. He has played what seems like strange hardball with a number of young players while being willing to pay for past results for vets.

- He signed a soon to be 34 year old Alex Killorn to a 4 year deal at 6.25 million bucks.
- he gave up two assts to get Trouba at 8 million a year
- he traded a recent 2nd round pick and a 3rd round pick for a potentially declining Chris Kreider who is set to make 6.5 million for the next two years.

At the same time he has signed none of his RFA’s for next year to long term contracts and is playing hardball with McTavish. He traded Drysdale after playing hardball on that contract. He basically seems to place a high value on veterans, basically not caring how much they make and places a low value on signing young players longterm.

With that in mind I would offer something like

Zary - a young player who was not awarded a long term contract and is a number that is low that seems to align with how Pat feels young players should be paid and
Coleman - maybe eat 15% to really entice Pat.

If the Flames want to take one of these future RFA headaches off his hands in advance of him having to grind them next summer to accept the reality that you have to pay your dues before getting paid throw in Rasmus and get Zellweger or Mintyukov off his hands. Pat seems like the type of who would rather pay Rasmus 8x8 anyway than give a young guy money before they have earned it.

I don’t think Pat wants prospects, he has been trading them away for vets recently. I think the play is good quality grizzled vets who have years of experience plus a guy like Zary who is not making much money as a young guy.

Zegras too.