BernieParent
In misery of redwings of suckage for a long time
Bellemare 82 games last year for 8 points.
Cousins 60 games last year for 16 points.
Just doesn't make sense to give up on 23 year young Cousins that has a potential to become a 30~40 point producer over keeping Bellemare who is 31 and isn't getting no more then 10 points in a season.
Yet Hakstok will play Bellemare in all 82 games next season for the Flyers, while Cousins ends up breaking out with Arizona for a 30-35 point season.
Cousins can do what Bellemare does plus more, but with expansion the Flyers were bound to lose Cousins or Laughton.
Hextall has to protect Laughton now, can't see Hextall being ok with losing two younger players in the span of a week.
Either Raffl, Read, Weise or Neuvirth is gonna end up in Vegas.
That's too linear a way to think of Cousins' value to the Flyers. Cousins wouldn't be scoring near to 30-35 points if he were playing Bellemare's exact minutes, since the faulty magic vision goggles Dave Hakstol must be wearing show him that Bellemare is a great PKer and late-game shutdown forward. Thus, Cousins would need to be compared against the player who would be playing the minutes for the spot for which Cousins would be competing.