Micklebot
Moderator
- Apr 27, 2010
- 53,120
- 30,340
I think he also assumed, like many of us, that our young defencemen would step up and actually contribute something to the team - that we had better defensive pieces who were NHL ready in the org to cope with the loss of a defenceman like Methot than we did NHL ready centers to replace a top-6 center like Brassard.
Looking at you, Claesson/Harpur. Don't look at me like that, you both know what you did.
Certainly it's possible that they thought Claesson and Harpur would fill a top 4 role, but then again, why sign Oduya if they were confident in that?
Now, if they felt Brassard was too valuable to give up, Pageau may have been the guy to expose (fill a 3rd line role rather than a 2nd line role), in which case, we have Smith slide into the 3rd line center role (probably what happens too if Brass were exposed, except Pageau slides into the 2nd line center role).
It's hindsight now, but you basically have two options going into the year;
Hoffman-Turris-Ryan
Dzingel-Pageau/Brass-Stone
UFA-Smith-Pyatt
Dido-Thompson-Burrows
Methot-Karlsson
Phaneuf-Ceci
Chabot/Boro- Wideman
ex: Harpur, Claesson
OR
Hoffman-Turris-Ryan
Dzingel-Brass-Stone
Smith-Pageau-Pyatt
Dido-Thompson-Burrows
Oduya-Karlsson
Phaneuf-Ceci
Chabot/Boro- Wideman
To me, it all comes down to the relative usefulness of the UFA in option one vs the usefulness of Oduya in option B, and how their counterpart performs (Methot and Brass/Pageau). We know Oduya was pretty useless, so how well would we have done with a low cost UFA like Cullen or Desharnais?
What I think happened, is Methot cost about 1.4 mil more than Brass or Pageau in real dollars, and that tipped the scales in the evaluation of options.