That's because you assume Armia would sign for 3 X 2.5. Who knows what his price for a 3 year deal would have been. Would you have agreed to 3 X 4 if that was his asking price? If you had all the info in terms of what contracts he was willing to sign, then we could talk about which one would be worth the best risk / home run but we don't have that info. All we know is that he was willing to sign a 1 year deal for 1.85. If I'm Armia and I see the Habs roster, I see potential to fill a top 6 role and score a big contract from having good production on a mediocre team. Why would I sign a 3 year deal for 2.5 if I can sign a 1 year deal for 1.85 and then land a 3 year deal for 4.
He does try to get value signings. He signed Alzner, Price, and Shaw. They backfired. He missed on Subban, Gorges, and Plekanec. They backfired. He landed a home run with Pacioretty. He tries.. but he often fails at his player evaluations and how they will fit in with our team. He sometimes scores on 1 year deals (Radulov) but then fails to keep that player after having him for a bargain for 1 year because he's afraid of overpaying. So we can't say he doesn't try.. he does try.. he just misses a lot.
MB is a bad GM plain and simple for today's NHL. He simply can't understand that you need goal scorers to win. Him and his newly hired buddy Julien still believe you can win games with grit and character like the Boston Bruins of the 2000s.
In the beginning, he seemed like a genius. He made low risk moves that improved the team. Right now, people are asking why he still has a job. After last year's performance, any team owner would have fired him because he blew up a potential contender.
When MB took over, the team was a center and a winger away from getting the cup. Instead of getting a few elite players to help them get there, he kept retooling the third and fourth lines. He got an elite player in Vanek. He got lucky because the Islanders had an equally bad GM. He didn't resign Vanek. Despite his age, Vanek is still a pretty good goal scorer even though he has played for different teams ever since.
He also got lucky with the addition of Petry but later overpaid him to keep him here. Right now, the deal doesn't look so bad because within one summer, he completely dismantled the Habs d-core and having a player like Petry is a blessing.
The other elite player he got was Radulov because no other team wanted to give him a chance apart from the Red Wings due to Radulov's past behavior. He could of easily overpaid for Radulov to stay here. It would have made sense because he acquired Drouin by giving up his best d prospect and at the end there was 8 million left on the cap which went unused. I don't know why he didn't spend it on Radulov. A line of Pacces Drouin Radulov could have been the difference maker for making the playoffs this year. He could of also traded Radulov at the trade deadline because we all knew Radulov wouldn't re-sign in Montreal. Getting assets for Radulov was the best move because we all knew the Habs would have an early playoff exit 2 years ago.
When the Habs didn't have much success in the playoffs, he started trading the best assets for lesser players (1 for 1 deals) in June, which he believed where of equal value because of character or targeting third or fourth liners in free agency, his focus should have been to add elite players especially centers. Instead, he blew it up. He let many players walk or traded for picks which amounted to nothing. Also, he traded those picks to get third or fourth liners and bottom d for depth. It seems he learned from his mistakes right now and is trying to stock up on picks. He basically traded fan favorites Subban and Galchenyuk for character yet Drouin and Radulov had also pretty bad behavior in the past.
Even bad GMs get lucky sometimes. MB's specialty is to find good third and fourth liners. However in today's NHL, you can't compete without talent. He got lucky with players like Danault, Niemi, Weise and Petry. The rest of his moves are bad. He also got lucky into getting Paccioretty and Gallagher to sign long term cheap deals. Drouin has yet to pan out and Weber is just declining due to his age. Subban is still in his prime.
Another terrible move was trading Desharnais for a 7th D who has yet to sign a new deal with an NHL team right now. The Habs basically lost a 50 point center for nothing. Also they placed Davidson on waivers and lost him to Edmonton again which is where Desharnais was traded in the first place. Time will tell if the Galchenyuk deal will hunt the Habs in a few years.
At the end, he mishandled many contracts and signed Price, Alzner and Shaw into over-inflated deals. Long term, you don't have many players locked up. Drouin, Petry and Weber are overpaid for what they do.
This year, he promised he would make the appropriate moves to make the team better. What I see is an AHL lineup with many question marks. He is trying to trade away his best goal scorer and is completely mishandling the situation. There's no elite center, the d is horrid and the Drouin experiment at center is ongoing. He also doesn't want to pay Danault but paid Plekanec up to 3.5 million to bring him back because he knows he has no other top centers.
I don't see any great value in his work. Gainey at least managed to turn things around and there was hope. With MB, there's no hope. This year, they drafted centers because he couldn't get one or traded them for nothing in the past. He did get lucky with Plekanec. Time will tell if Rychel and Valiev amount to anything.