Confirmed with Link: Vrana traded to STL

[ArGarBarGar]

Look, I think both sides are getting blown out of proportion here, this argument sounds worse than it is because that's what the internet does to everyone. You mostly have the right idea, it is a weird situation, but some of us simply want to say "trading Vrana for a 7th is dumb" and others are saying "you're not allowed to say that because of unknown reasons" and "huRR you don't know what cOnJeCtuRe means".

To call the trade dumb argues that there was a better move to be made, something you would need to argue somewhat definitively.

Without knowing the extent of Vrana's off-ice issues (which were so problematic that he was admitted to a program that was created to deal with significant personal issues), you cannot reasonably ascertain his value. There is a wide range of reasons behind why he entered the program, and considering nobody would pick him up for free, I doubt this issue was a nothingburger.

Also, mocking fans of the same team on this board in the way that you are is childish and makes you look ridiculous.

 

[dalem177]

You guys need to stop focusing on TDL. Is the 7th that we got before TDL going to pay off so much faster than a 7th we would have gotten at offseason?

There was no deadline for this move. Blues are not even making the playoffs so TDL was irrelevant.

I'm just poking at the logic of the other dude's opinion. I don't think the TDL was relevant. AND I'm not the GM or coach, so I don't know poop about poop. I watch on the tee vee.

 

[Frk It]

Honestly, I'm so sick and tired of this. Now, we're gonna hear EVERY DAMN TIME Jakub Vrana scores a goal just how dumb we were. When he predictably falls off... We'll hear about this couple weeks of hockey where he scored like 4 goals for another couple years after that.

He was done in Detroit. Cooked. Finito.

We didn't "do the Blues a favor". The Blues took a low-risk, medium reward shot. Entirely possible that Vrana was just completely shot.

You didn’t like the 20 seasons we got of the Hossa vs Franzen tv series??

 

[kook10]

I suppose the big question is: with the $2.625m/yr opened up by dumping him, can we get someone who outperforms him through next year? As a point of reference, that is around what Sunny made, and a little less than Athansiou makes . Maybe 35 pts for a full season.

 

[SoupNazi]

You didn’t like the 20 seasons we got of the Hossa vs Franzen tv series??

I preferred the spinoff "Cleary vs. Nyquist" myself. Better villains.

 

[Hen Kolland]

He was very elite compared to his peers back when he was 17. Hence 10+ years.

His 100+ goals in 330 career games is probably 90th percentile as far as goal scoring on a per game basis at the NHL level.

Has he been healthy/available… obviously not if that was your point.

Oh really? A soon to be NHLer was elite compared to all other 17 year olds? The group of which 99.9999999999% of never play an NHL game? Wow. How significant. How could I forget all the times he proved to be an elite NHL scorer in the 0 games he played between ages 17 and 20.

I just gave you quantified context that his career is not better than Mantha in Detroit. Did you EVER say that Mantha was elite? I was one of the biggest Mantha supporters here and never said it, so I’m confident you didn’t either. But maybe I’m wrong.

The only thing about Vrana that was elite was his potential. And it still is. But he’s never strung anything together to make it anything more than that.

If we traded Mantha for a 7th we all would have hated it.

That depends on the circumstances. Considering we don’t know the full picture, it’s impossible to say.

Here’s an extreme example. Say your wife was a serial cheater and cheated on you at every single chance she got. Would you be willing to stay in that relationship until you found a suitable replacement?

Or a softer situation. You propose to your girlfriend and she says “no I don’t love you.” Are you going to hold her hostage until you find a suitable replacement?

Sometimes you just know it’s the right time to move on no matter the cost.

 

[SoupGuru]

Cripes, I saw a couple of additional pages on this thread and thought some juicy gossip just leaked out..

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Cripes, I saw a couple of additional pages on this thread and thought some juicy gossip just leaked out..

No, just people pissed we didn’t waste a few weeks to get a 5th that won’t make our roster instead of a 7th that won’t make our roster

 

[dalem177]

Cripes, I saw a couple of additional pages on this thread and thought some juicy gossip just leaked out..

There was some leaking, but that turned out to be me.

Sorry. I'll wash the cushions now.

 

[The Zermanator]

Anyone who thinks Yzerman made a mistake are deluding themselves.

Here's the facts:
- Teams could have gotten Vrana for free through waivers not long ago. No one was interested.
- Yzerman did a full 50% retainment on the contract and yet the best return was a 7th round pick. That's about as close to zero value as you can get in this league.

The relationship between Vrana and the team was clearly irreconcilable. So at least we got something back, and all it cost was some cap hit next season which we won't likely need. No harm done. And now that drama is out of the locker room. Time to move on. It wasn't going to work in Detroit and there wasn't much of any interest in the league. There was no value to extract there. Hopefully things go well for him in the future.

 

[RabidBadger]

So you are fighting for a playoff birth AND want to risk messing up your offense, which had been doing quite well for several games there, by inserting a potentially problematic player, with the express purpose of showcasing his talents for a trade. A trade that you'll want to make at the Trade Deadline. Because you'll want to be a seller. A seller who wants to make the playoffs.

Do you see how those concepts seem a little opposed to each other?

I second the didn't-want-to-dick-up-the-potential-playoff-run theory.

I don't know if this angle has been posited; but it could be the players themselves said "keep this jagoff away from our locker room".

At any rate, I'll carry on not giving a squat cuz he gone!

 

[AussieWings]

No, no, no he wasn't. But you could imagine what it'd be like if he was, right...?

If Vrana wins a golf major in the next five years, I will award you a million Bench Bucks for this perspicacious post.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

The guy who quotes me saying "when did I say" then says something I didn't say lol. We lost our best scorer for zero, sorry if I care dude....

Aren’t you always pro tank, pro losing, pro sucking? And NOW you’re pro scoring and pro being better now?

I’m starting think you’re just pro complaining.

 

[HoweFan]

I think Vrana made some promises to Steve and the Wings when we acquired him. I’m guessing he didn’t keep those promises and it kind of put Steve on the spot. He forced us to make the best move we could. There very few options

 

[lomekian]

Ultimately, none of us know what happened behind the scenes, why he went into the programme, why he was waived and why we shipped him out.

A shame because there is a potential elite goalscorer that seemed to be excellent for us when fit, but the lack of willingness for anyone else to take a punt on him on waivers implies there is a lot more to this situation than any of us can know, and its probably unwise to speculate.

 

[RabidBadger]

Here’s an extreme example. Say your wife was a serial cheater and cheated on you at every single chance she got. Would you be willing to stay in that relationship until you found a suitable replacement?

Or a softer situation. You propose to your girlfriend and she says “no I don’t love you.” Are you going to hold her hostage until you find a suitable replacement?

Sometimes you just know it’s the right time to move on no matter the cost.

I was musing myself how tolerant some people would be if they were in a potentially hostile situation. I doubt it'd be along the lines of, "Yeah, there's a guy at work that sexually harasses the female employees and talks bout how one day he'll shoot the place up. We need to keep him around until someone else is hired so we're not short staffed".

 

[jaster]

Cripes, I saw a couple of additional pages on this thread and thought some juicy gossip just leaked out..

Nope. Just some guys using a ton of conjecture, other people pointing it out, and then one of those guys doubling down on it while, in his attempt to explain that he knows what conjecture is, further demonstrating that he doesn't know what conjecture is.

And Bench posting a funny meme.

Could have been 3 posts.

 

[jaster]

If Vrana wins a golf major in the next five years, I will award you a million Bench Bucks for this perspicacious post.

Billy Gilmore?

 

[AussieWings]

Billy Gilmore?

Apparently, yes. That's exactly what I meant. I did not make a mistake regarding which movie the scene came from, it was all intentional.

(Oops.)

 

[takimaki]

Ultimately, none of us know what happened behind the scenes, why he went into the programme, why he was waived and why we shipped him out.

A shame because there is a potential elite goalscorer that seemed to be excellent for us when fit, but the lack of willingness for anyone else to take a punt on him on waivers implies there is a lot more to this situation than any of us can know, and its probably unwise to speculate.

No, but I think it is reasonable to say that he seriously pissed off Yzerman by crossing some kind of line.

Whatever it was, I hope Vrana has learned something and doesn't make the same kind of mistake with St. Louis.

 

[Leadzedder]

I don’t think you do.

‘This is a bad hockey trade by my favorite hockey team’

Everybody responds;
No you can’t say that for sure… he MIGHT/POSSIBLY/COULD Have done something that made it impossible to continue in Detroit!

The ONLY conjecture here is that Vrana did anything wrong or to the detriment of the team or his own character.
He got PERSONAL assistance. That’s it.

Anything else is complete conjecture
This should be judged as a hockey trade.

We traded a talented player who has scored 4 goals in the last 5 games and we are paying his salary next year. Those are the facts. Conjecture is that for some ‘unknown’ reason we HAD to do it. No evidence of that.

We traded a talented player who has scored 4 goals in the last 5 games and we are paying his salary next year.

For a 7th.

This was not a hockey trade. Silly to think otherwise.

 

[RED WINGS STOMP]

Still sucks overall, we could use his goal scoring, or the appropriate trade value of a player of his caliber.

Wish you hadn't done what you did Snake, whatever it was.

 

[OgeeOgelthorpe]

We traded a talented player who has scored 4 goals in the last 5 games and we are paying his salary next year.

For a 7th.

This was not a hockey trade. Silly to think otherwise.

We traded a player with a reputation for being a headcase while on his previous team, and who was in the player assistance program for publicly unknown issues to another team so THEY can deal with them.

What we do know: Yzerman is not the kind of GM to just outright boot a player for previous issues. We have Bobby Ryan as a good example of that.

What we see a track record of: Yzerman getting rid of players that are headcases and distractions. Jon Drouin was this in Tampa. Steve Downie was one. Ryan Malone was one. Vrana is hot right now, yay, but was a distraction in Detroit. Am I missing others?

I don't care that Vrana has 4 goals in 5 games in St. Louis. He wouldn't have scored 4 goals in 5 games in Detroit playing on a 4th line next to Suter and no powerplay time. Something was up with Vrana that made him persona non-grata here. I'm not a blind trust the Yzerplan type, but I do trust that Yzerman and Lalonde wanted Vrana gone for good reason.

 

[Henkka]

Vrana now averaging 0.5 goals per game both last year and this year.

Yeah... He's the 2nd best goal-scorer per ice-time after Matthews...

... and then comes the off-ice problems.

 

[jkutswings]

Could have been 3 posts.

So you're saying that...