Holy christ, I have now read this entire thread and I'm somehow still shocked even after all these years at how emotionally immature a lot of posters on these boards are. I don't know what else to call it.
So we have a 25 year old center who is on pace for his 2nd 95+ point season in a row as a player who will likely win Selkes in his career, but now we wish we dealt him for some mediocre magic beans?
Do people not understand how volatile the game of hockey is? Especially over a span of 82 games. Sometimes the puck finds you, other times it doesn't.
Then you start over thinking and go into a slump.
Then you find your way out of the slump and things go well for you. Neither of these statuses is 'who you really are'.
"Imagine if Petey played his best for the entire year". And what, scored 180 points a season? There have been like 10 players in NHL history who exceed the expectations some people set for Petey.
But we have seen this with Hughes, Boeser, Miller, Demko, etc.
Every time one of them struggles, there's like 9 chicken littles who want to deal them and lament that we didn't get a 2nd round pick and a shitty 2nd liner for them.
I'm curious, do you break up with your partner and move out of the house every time you have a disagreement? Or do you ever think that maybe, just maybe, there's some volatility to life and some mitigating circumstances that render it beneficial to be a little bit more thoughtful from time to time?
Hfboards has this elitist perspective that looks down on reddit and other comment boards, and I want so badly for it to live up to that smugness. And sometimes it does. But stuff like this belongs on facebook comments, not a messageboard dedicated to the sport.