Murray’s interview essentially confirms he chose to protect Steel over Fleury. Cited defensive depth in young players as to why. God I hate him
Murray said prospects to protect. IMO, he's protecting both Steel and Jones. The three known players we think are set to protect are Rakell, Terry, and Lundy. I think Murray has a soft spot for Silfy and he probably would have protected Silfy before the two prospects. I really didn't care to protect either Steel or Jones. Silf and Rico both have high salaries that Seattle would pass up (and we now know Seattle wanted to preserve their cap space).
I don't agree with Murray's choosing to protect Steel and Jones over Fleury. In a small sample, Fleury showed he can hang in a second pairing role and not look out of place. Steel has struggled for the past two seasons, but he's good at faceoffs. I like Jones' tenacity, but often it's chaotic and not cerebral (bull in a China shop), plus not enough scoring prowess.
From a resource POV, it does make sense to move Fleury because you do have talent depth at LHD because we currently have a bunch of unknowns at forward.
From a talent-value POV, it doesn't make sense to get rid of a player who's talent shone better than both Steel and Jones. Our offense has sucked for the past few years, but our blue line has been hit with massive injuries for the past two seasons. Losing Fleury is losing that quality depth. Losing either Steel or Jones wouldn't affect the outcome of our putrid offense. LoL We have Sam Carrick, who can replace either Steel or Jones.
We won't know how much we will hate this choice until a year or three later. Maybe we won't even think about it again like we did with losing Djoos. Our seasons have sucked so bad that we're latching onto 3rd pairing defensemen like they're our cornerstones when they haven't had a long enough record with us to establish that value. hahahahhahaha