Hey Whisky, I don't agree with your over-negativism regarding Shea Weber specifically, but you are spot on pointing out how some of the GM's defenders spew vile garbage to justify bad hockey moves.
MB really has to go.
Hey Whiskey, I would've liked to come up with the post above, but Baseball Coach already wrote it.
The sleazy xenophobia really boils my blood.
As for my negativism, well, Shea came in an inopportune circumstance when the GM decided to retain a horrible coach and saddle us with Shea for 10 years to boot. Shea has a lot of baggage in terms of his contract too and was traded for a player I didn't love but thought was our best skater. There's no way I can bring myself to like Shea Weber unless he really steps up. He hasn't yet, sorry to say. He's emblematic of BargainBin's tenure. Besides, most of my criticism of Shea comes from the criticism that people tossed at Subban. You, BaseballCoach, repeatedly said Subban has peaked and has physically slowed down. Well he's still more productive than Weber and if PK has peaked than Weber has definitely peaked (had his lowest point totals since 2008!) too. I know it's lame to rag on our own player but I don't see Shea as really being a Hab, I see him as being a BargainBin player - when BargainBin is gone, I hope so will Shea.
Anyway - everyone complains about how bad HFHabs has been. I don't think it's any more negative than when Gauthier was mucking it up in his last season. The difference is that we were pretty much united against Gauthier (full disclosure: I was nominally pro-Gauthier (and wrong!) because I thought he was hamstrung by Gainey's moves) and it was kinda fun to all rip on Gauthier.
BargainBin has some diehard fans and that's where the discontent comes from. Some fans openly state they'll be contrarian just to 'balance the scales' and other fans refuse to criticise management in any serious way because they think criticising management is equal to not being a fan of the team. It's not a problem, but seeing people whine about it is annoying. Trying to force rule changes where 'negativity' isn't allowed is annoying. Seeing people twist themselves to say "oh no, they might be FAs but they'll re-sign" and then spew criticism at the haters... only to see the players leave and the poster disappear is annoying.
The rampant xenophobia against 'greedy' Radulov and Markov is annoying.