Cheap, Cheap, Cheap!!!!
Devils continue to be plagued by a cheapskate GM. Yet another puzzling move out of the swamp had the Devils ship out over rated winger Danius Zubrus and a 3rd round pick to the Nashville Predators. Coming back to New Jersey are a couple of CPHL players in Nils Ekman and Alexander Svitov along with a 5th round pick. There is also another guy named Benoit Poulliot who is also going to New Jersey in this deal.
When asked to give his reasons for the deal Syl broke it down like this. As far as I'm concerned Ekmans done as much in his career, or damn near as much as Zubrus has. Zubrus is still living off hype from the 1997 playoffs, his stats are merely above average. Svitov is a gamble, but hes a big guy who still could become an effective third line centre. If the NHL Blue Jackets ever figure out how to manage a team he could end up alright. Still he does serve a need for us now. Poulliot is the key piece for us. He's a lanky guy with some terrific natural talent. If he can fill out his frame, and increase his strength, we feel that he will be a top line forward. He proved he'll play whatever role he needs to play to win at the WJC, and if he can play for Brent Sutter, than he certainly has the desire to compete in this game. So mix that with talent and you should get a pretty good player. Still we wish the departed luck, and are aware that Zubrus is in a better situation for the rest of this season.
We feel that we are getting top line pieces into our organization, although slower than we'd like. Still this was a very old team, that wasn't good enough to be a playoff team this year when we took over here. The lack of top line talent and potential was a glaring weakness. We're still going to need a lot of time, and have a lot of work to do. But eventually we feel that we can get this franchise back on the upswing and in the position to be a contender. It's just going to take us a bit of time to get it done right.
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