I for one think that he turned the corner at the end of the season. He was playing more physical and was visibly more aggresive. Hope this continues throughout next season.
Because Butler is a better player right now. He's been good enough to play for the last two USA World Championship teams yet Flames fans feel a slow skating AHL defenseman is better?
You know a lot of bad players play in the World Championships? Now if he plays in the Olympics, thats a different story. Pretty much nobody cares about the WC.
As for Butler... meh. Don't really care, a high draft pick would be great.
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"With a coach and a player, sometimes there's just so much respect there that it's boils over"
-Taylor Hall
As for Butler for whatever reason he is the subject of a zany amount of fan irrationality and hyperbole. He is neither great nor horrible. I think it will be funny if he ends up getting traded in the future because that will be one important indicator of his value and it seems that some of you would be surprised if he returned anything valuable back at all.
Let me know when one of these guys Feaster "finds" actually pans out. That's one thing you have to give Sutter credit for. He may not have been great at evaluating talent via the draft, but at least he made up for it in finding key players for the Flames outside the box (Kiprusoff, Giordano, Huselius, Glencross, etc). So quite often what ever talent we lost in the draft was made up for elsewhere.
Meanwhile Feaster hasn't proven much going the same route, as all of his guys have either not worked out at all (Jones, Comeau, Butler, Cervanka), or never made the team at all. Finding outside the box players is great in theory, but thus far Feaster hasn't had much success, lets hope things change with Berra, Ramo, and the like.
As for Butler for whatever reason he is the subject of a zany amount of fan irrationality and hyperbole. He is neither great nor horrible. I think it will be funny if he ends up getting traded in the future because that will be one important indicator of his value and it seems that some of you would be surprised if he returned anything valuable back at all.
Call it irrational if you want to, but I honestly think Babchuk contributed more in less time. Babchuk's numbers with the Flames are superior to Butler's, even in blocked shots. There are posters on record saying Babchuk can't even skate backwards.
Don't expect us to have 6 clones of Niklas Lidstrom.
Having a player like Butler on our roster - at this point in time - is just what we need to land a top 3 pick in 2014. Anything other action means we'll keep finishing 17th in the league overall indefinitely.
As for Butler for whatever reason he is the subject of a zany amount of fan irrationality and hyperbole. He is neither great nor horrible. I think it will be funny if he ends up getting traded in the future because that will be one important indicator of his value and it seems that some of you would be surprised if he returned anything valuable back at all.
Butler's following in the footsteps of Regehr and Bouwmeester in being the subject of over the top criticism based on group think and irrationality. There are some warts to his game, but on a 1 year deal at $1.7M he's a perfectly fine option to fill a 4-6 role.
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