Micklebot
Moderator
- Apr 27, 2010
- 53,777
- 30,978
Argument is pointless. Some believe the trade was good. Some believe it wasn't.
I just don't think saying "well it was good at the time" is a good point. Hindsight is how deals are measured.
Of it was as simple as Hossa and heatley okay I see it brought us immediate success kinda (although I think Hossa brings us the same success) but I truly believe it costed us chara as well.
For the two years prior to the unforeseeable happening, it gave us monetary flexibility with a cost savings of 1.5 mil plus the difference between De'Vries and whoever you want to count as his replacement and a player most considered on par or better at the time who was young and improving (or so we thought).
If you're complaint is it pissed of Chara, fine, but it's not like we couldn't have picked Chara over Redden. We could have given into his contract demands, and not signed Redden, but we went the other way. Chara didn't demand a trade, he didn't refuse to negotiate, he just didn't come to terms with the team (and may have refused to sign at a discount because Muckler is a ******).
The cost savings set us up as well as could be hoped going into negotiations with Chara and Havlat. If we hadn't done that trade, we still may have had to chose between Redden and Chara due to finances and still likely make the same wrong choice.