I'm not a huge fan of either Gorges or Emelin, but to abuse a hfboards cliche, Emelin has more 'potential'. He still has room to become a better defender by improving his timing while defending the rush, and has better puck moving skills which can also improve with confidence & experience. Gorges clearly has plateaud. So it makes Emelin a much more compelling player to keep, and you need to roll the dice a bit, because you need guys like Alexie to make big plays in the playoffs, deep in a series when teams have zeroed in on PK & Markov and are pinning them down.
I like your post...very positive.
I hope this is what will happen (above info).
I've always been skeptical of Emelin's Defense 101 (with or without the puck...positioning/where to be,etc). I hope you're right about Emelin and what management probably feels,etc. Cheers!
Habs management doesn't always make smart decisions, especially with Emelin when he was injured. IMO they jumped the gun. I don't think anyone was going to offer him anything remotely close to that while he was injured. They could've went shorter term and less money.
Don't expect anything out of the ordinary... depending on his pairing.
Yup, part of me feels this also (signed him waaaay too early), but Emelin did bounce back well or well enough!, imo.
I'll (for now) stay in between your opinion and Burke the Legend's opinion. Time will tell (whether keeping Emelin OVER Gorges was the right decision,etc), but...I still think we need to improve our #2-3-4 spots...very obvious, imo.
But, I like our #5-6-7 spots (Weaver, Tinordi, Beaulieu). Heck...with many injuries I could see Weaver doing well in the #4 spot, but we'd all prefer him in the #5 spot. Hence why we really need to improve our #2-3-4 spots...Bergevin to the rescue (hopefully with time).
Oh man, I honestly think this thread is going to be on-going for the next years
. I can already see a lot of posters coming back here for and against Gorges. Will be interesting
Yup! I was hard on Gorges since he signed his BIG contract, but I liked him in playoffs VS Tampa and VS Boston...he was ok/decent VS Rangers.
I like the fact that he can play well on the RIGHT side (and was always a playoff warrior), but is still overpaid at $3.9mil/year. Then again...so many dmen are overpaid...salaries are ludicrous. Grabovski making 5mil/year?!!! Meszaros making 4.1mil/year????!!!!! And so much more... what the ****!!!!