Pretty weird how Hemsky, Gilbert, Cogliano, and Penner all went on to other organizations and have been successful, right? How can they when they're all complete suckbags made of lazy?!
Hemsky is your only example in my mind of where someone went a became "successful" and that was for a very short stint. I am curious how he will do in Dallas.
Gilberts Corsi away from Campbell was terrible. If you watched any of Florida's games he was his usual give away machine. At the end of the year why did the second worst team decide to part ways with him? Minny didn't want him either and don't give me that cap space BS. Gilbert was terrible and is terrible and Montreal is in a world of hurt losing Gorges and bringing in a guy like Gilbert. Must have a good agent to capitalize on a thin defenseman market and get a raise from his previous league minimum contract.
Cogliano might be your best example depending on what you consider successful. He got traded to the Ducks and had his ice time reduced and switched to the wing. Was completely remolded slowly into a different player. Shows what good coaching can do.
Penner... Not as bad as your Gilbert example but close. Penners best personal year was with the Oil. Pancake Penner is a guy who drifts through hockey games. In the playoffs I would say he plays well and obviously helped win a cup so you can say that is successful of him. But he is one of those players that has his salary go down entering his peak years and the terms of his contracts shorter and shorter and he is now currently unemployed. I expect him to be either signed for 1 mill soon as a experiment. Or for him to not be signed until an injury takes out someone notable, and that team is desperate for a plug.
Pho has great coaching and a solid defensive system but it will takes years for Gagner to unlearn all his bad habits... if ever. He will not have the offensive star power around him to bolster his numbers either.
I've always rooted for Gagner but his overall play has been so weak, even during the lock-out where he put up good points, that it is extremely hard to imagine him being successful away from Edmonton. In Edmonton he cheated all over the ice to pad his numbers plus had excellent offensive line mates.
As a center he is useless and if he stayed Mac T would have moved him to the wing to shelter his lack of discipline.
In short I think he will be a train wreck next year for Pho. He will either try to play defensive, fail, and end up putting up 20 points in 82 games. Or, he will ignore his teams systems be -45 and still only manage to put up 45 points playing top line minutes.
This is of course an exaggeration, but I think for at least one full year Gagner will be very bad. Two years under Tippet and we might see some positive changes in his effectiveness.
No kidding.
