According to Coleman, Tkachuk wanted to stay

[Hot_Flatus]

Originally Posted by Paulie Walnuts

Peters was a good coach. He coached Gio to a Norris and got career years out of Tkachuk, Lindholm, Johnny and Monny.

The issue was the team was not prepared for the Avs and Makar obviously. They got steam rolled, but it was still a close series in the end. A glove save away from a 2-0 series lead going to Colorado.

The issue became that series made Peters and Treliving panic, and change how we play. A lot of the strong metrics the team had under Sutter in 2022 they had that under Peters just not the goaltending.

Nothing about that series was close. It was a stomping. And really, the team had some serious issues dating back months before the playoffs - they had limped in thanks to an outrageous first half but were not playing anywhere close to where they finished in the standings.

Sutter was also the one who cracked the career years on Tkachuk, Lindholm and Gaudreau. Not Peters that year.

Peters was a bad hire, just like Geoff Ward and Glen Gulutzen. Pair that with a long list of mediocre stop gap goalie options and bungling the Tkachuk/Gaudreau contracts and I don't know how anyone can advocate that Treliving was a standout GM.

[Shazam]

Originally Posted by Goriders

Seems to be how the off season runs around here.

When does the CP hot oil wrestling tournament start?

[timun]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Button lost Phil Housley on waivers because he was stupid enough to pick up a $2.5-million defenceman who couldn't play. He traded Giguere because he was afraid the fans wouldn't let him risk losing Fred Brathwaite in an expansion draft. He gave away Marc Savard because he preferred to keep the coach instead of the player, and then fired the coach anyway. Those decisions were not motivated by a lack of cash.

A teeny, tiny bit of coming to Button's defence:

He dropped Housley off the Flames' protected list in the waiver draft thinking that the Blackhawks wouldn't bother picking up the expensive contract of an over-the-hill powerplay quarterback. He gambled, and lost. However, dangling Housley in particular off the protected list was absolutely motivated by cash: if Housley was claimed by the Blackhawks, it got rid of an expensive contract.

With respect to Giguere, the risk wasn't just potentially losing Brathwaite—and he honestly was appropriately wary of losing Brathwaite, because he was cheap and good and that was a very highly prized commodity for him and the fledgling Blue Jackets and Wild. The risk was if he protected both Brathwaite and Giguere he had to leave an additional two forwards and two defencemen exposed. The risk of losing one of Tommy Albelin or Phil Housley—neither of whom was on the Flames roster by the beginning of the 2001-'02 season, and left for "nothing" anyway (free agency and aforementioned waiver draft, respectively)—and one of Andrei Nazarov, Bill Lindsay, Jason Wiemer or Clarke Wilm was... not a big deal, in retrospect. In fact in retrospect the best defenceman he had at the time was Filip Kuba, who was left unprotected and picked by the Wild, but hindsight's 20/20 and all that.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by timun

A teeny, tiny bit of coming to Button's defence:

He dropped Housley off the Flames' protected list in the waiver draft thinking that the Blackhawks wouldn't bother picking up the expensive contract of an over-the-hill powerplay quarterback. He gambled, and lost. However, dangling Housley in particular off the protected list was absolutely motivated by cash: if Housley was claimed by the Blackhawks, it got rid of an expensive contract.

Button only needed to get rid of Housley's contract because he had saddled himself with Igor Kravchuk, who made about the same amount of money and wasn't remotely worth it. He tried waiving Kravchuk to get under budget, but naturally there were no takers – so he had to waive Housley instead.

For a team in dire financial straits to pick up Kravchuk at $2.5 million was insane.

[timun]

I mean, I'm not going to defend Button picking up Kravchuk, but I wouldn't pin "having to get rid of Housley" solely on that. After all, the highest-paid player on the team in the first place was the backup goalie...

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by timun

I mean, I'm not going to defend Button picking up Kravchuk, but I wouldn't pin "having to get rid of Housley" solely on that. After all, the highest-paid player on the team in the first place was the backup goalie...

Vernon was already on the team and the budget was set when Ottawa put Kravchuk on waivers. If Button had been able to count, he would have known better than to spend money he didn't have on a defenceman who wasn't good enough to play for the Senators.

Mind you, signing Vernon to that much money at that stage of his career was another idiotic move – and one Button wouldn't have had to make if he'd kept Giguere.