[News] Connor Mackey signs with the NYR

[Jeff Lebowski]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

The much bigger miss was Treliving/Sutter keeping him on the main roster over Valimaki.

IIRC Giordano raved about Mackey in the pre season to bubble year - pre bubble. I don't think Mackey is as bad as people make him out to be here, though I'm not saying it's like a St. Louis situation but confidence is a big thing and one coach may give it when another won't.

IMO Valimaki purposely played himself off the team. He saw players ahead of him Kylington and Zadorov and he decided it's best for his career to move on. I even recall an interview he did after a bad game saying he felt great - perhaps I read into it but he was basically telling other teams he was good to go.

Careers are short and the window to make $$ is reduced if you're not able to get in lineup.

People may think these guys want to play career for the Flames (or any team) but they want to maximize their careers - there are 31 other places to do that.

[Redrum]

Originally Posted by Vinny01

The much bigger miss was Treliving/Sutter keeping him on the main roster over Valimaki.

The miss was letting him rot on the bench/press box. Valimaki wasn't even AHL worthy at the time.

[DoubleK]

Originally Posted by Johnny Makarov

Speaking of offensive defencemen who suck at defence... Gustafsson after he was on the Flames is on his 6th NHL team in 3 years!

Gus would have been pretty handy this past season with Oliver doing whatever it was that he was doing.

[Bingo]

Wouldn't be hard to look back at discussions a year ago and find most of us saying Valimaki looks awful and shouldn't make the team. I'm sure you'd also seeing some saying he was done as a player.