Quote:
Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction
I see your point, but matching also has to do with whether or not they thought it was better to overpay than lose him. It's doesn't necessarily mean they thought it was what he was worth, only that it was better than the alternative.
Part of it is also pride. No GM wants their players poached.
Having said that, they turned down a high 1st round pick and a 3rd rounder for him, so they do value him a lot. Part of building a winning team though is being able to maintain a salary structure where young players aren't paid top dollar as quickly as they were forced to with O'Reilly due to our offersheet.
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No they turned down a mid first round pick (and 3rd) from the Flames.
The Flames had the same line up that had the 14th overall pick in previous draft.
On March 1, 2013 when the Avs matched the offer the Flames were 7-8-4 and 5 pts out of 5th spot in the conference with 2 games in hand on Detroit.
The top 6 were Iginla, Cammalleri, Tanquay, Hudler, Glencross and Stempniak.... The top 2 centres were Stajan and Backlund!! (O'Rielly would have played 20+ minutes a game on this team)
The Defense was Bouwmeester, Wideman, Gio and Brodie..... Sarich was a spare part d-man.
Kipper was in goal coming off a great 2011-12
With O'Rielly making the kind of impact he was supposed to both the Flames and Avs thought the Flames would make the playoffs ..... or because they had Bouwmeester fall just short.
There was little doubt that #1 draft pick that the Avs were going to get was going to be a 10th pick at best and possibly a 20th-ish
The Avs were not getting Monahan... they were getting Domi or Curtis Lazar or Gauthier or maybe Poirier.
Turns out ROR had little or no positive impact .... the Avs only winning 8 of the 29 games he played in.
Had the Avs thought they were getting a top 6 pick they would not have matched.
PS. If O'rielly had joined the Flames and the season played out exactly the same..... wouldn't have the Flames given the Avs the 28th overall pick instead of #6??
