The mistake jg made was not selling at the deadline (yandle) but trading away 2 seconds and saarela for staal. Those two seconds would prob be some of the top prospects in our org currently, as well as sareela who would prob be the 5th best prospect we have. Finally we would of prob traded our second last year for Smith so we would still have ottawa's pick this year giving us a top 40 pick.
It never felt like he was a good fit here in terms of positions. Stepan and Brass were the undisputed number one and two centers here and hayes was emerging, so our brilliant coach put him on the third line wing with Hayes iirc. Paying two seconds and a good prospect for a third line winger was idiotic. Minny has moved him to his natural position and look now
he sucked with us because he was playing injured...after a full off season he promptly played in all 82 games for the Wild scoring 28 goals with 37 assists...this season he has 21 goals in 50 games...our goofy GM just let him walk away...a big center who can win face offs and score over 20 goals and our GM just lets him walk and gives us a scrub like McCleod instead...then trades Hagelin for a taxi driver
A. The sequence here is completely wrong
Eric Staal was just a rental here (he played what, 25-30'ish games ?). He didn't seem to be very good with us, though some of that can undoubtedly also be thrown at the feet of AV for his usage of him (here he was mostly on the third line if i recall). If he was "injured", i blame him ENTIRELY as he should never have gotten traded to us in the first place.
We didn't play him as a center so that point is moot
You know Saths is still apart of the organization and has a say in these moves right?
Now that's just ridiculous. Sather made so many horrible moves it's not even funny.
not really...he built us a team that from 2012 to 2015 made some big big playoff runs...if we didn't get screwed by the NHL refs in the game 2 of the SC finals against the Kings we would of had a banner hanging in the rafters...and in 2015 we came within a goal in game 7 of reaching another final....now with Gorton at the helm we are going to become the Coyotes very soon
I know right it was totally Gortons fault we resigned Giradi and Staal to albatross deals while getting rid of Strallman for nothing
Girardi was a warrior for us who broke down over the punishing years of all those playoff runs and blocked shots...Staal was a stand out great defense man who took a puck to the eye in late 2013 and was never the same afterwards...they both deserved those contracts but injuries and wear and tear took their toll on both of them. not their fault and not Slats fault...an unfortunate injury that weakened Marc Staal
Excuses excuses. If he did not give those contracts this team would be in a much better positon
