BLONG7 said:
AHHH...spoken like a true big market team fan...
Boy are you ever mistaken. It's not about $50 million dollar payrolls. It's about teams who have an awesome talent base but do nothing to get better. If you're trying to tell me that Scotty Bowman couldn't make a playoff contender out of someone like Florida, then it's an insult to the rest of us.
The issue at hand is that all of the teams I've mentioned have an awesome talent base. Florida has the franchise goalie in Luongo, franchise defenseman in Bouwmeester, and the franchise forward in Oli Jokinen. And yet, they CHOOSE to not surround those players with better talent.
We then go to Atlanta and we see that the Thrashers have an all world goalie in Kari Lehtonen, a future franchise defenseman in Braydon Colburn, and two stud forwards in Kovalchuk and Heatley. I'll give Atlanta the benefit of the doubt though in that they are at least trying to build around Kovalchuk and Heatley by bringing in MacEachern, Kozlov, and Savard. As well, the addition of Scott Mellanby doesn't hurt and having Garnet Exelby patrol the blueline for a full season will help.
As for Columbus, Doug MacLean is a GM that has completely overspent on Andrew Cassels, Luke Richardson, Todd Marchant, and Scott Lachance. He has Rick Nash, Nik Zherdev, Rostislav Klesla and Marc Denis to build around. MacLean dropped the ball on that. He deals off Daryl Sydor to Tampa Bay for next to nothing and then complains they aren't making any money. Gee, proper management there.
As for Pittsburgh, they were a team that has known for a long time that they would need a new arena. Even while Lemieux was retired, they knew they needed the arena. They did nothing. Instead, they blamed escalating salaries and let everyone of the good players go for next to nothing. Marginal prospects at best for Jagr and Rico Fata and some scrubs for Kovalev.
So, if you're trying to tell me that any of these teams deserve a shot a drafting Crosby because their GMs are inept at building adequate teams, then no, they don't. Hey, I have no problem with a Tampa Bay or a Montreal or a Calgary or an Edmonton drafting Sydney simply because they've at least built teams to compete (and in Tampa's case, built a Stanley Cup winner). And let's not forget that in Tampa Bay, the biggest cause of their turn around was aggressive dealing by Jay Feester and the coaching of John Tortorella. Calgary's turn around can be clearly pointed at the hiring of Sutter for both positions and his knowledge of the game.
So, people can point at me and say that my post is crap, and to be honest, I could care less. However, at least I've provided facts to back up my argument. So, for some of the personal attacks that I have received, I think that it's rather childish that some of you act in that manner. And where's the moderators now when you need them. I've been blasted in the past for that type of behaviour and now when it happens to me, the mods view it as acceptable. Talk about hypocrites.