No, you're a contrarian because your immediate reaction often differs from the majority. Whether that's actually your opinion or whether you want to initiate a discussion... well...
Perhaps I am one of the few people on here who engages in critical thinking, not an immediate knee jerk overreaction to every move that is made, no matter how big or small.
What you've completely glossed over is the cost of the players involved. Coburn will be UFA after next year and will be in line for a suitable raise from his current salary and AAV. Gudas is on a cap friendly deal through next year and the picks won't factor into the cap for a couple of seasons. It was an asset management move both to clear a body on the ladder above the defensive prospects the Flyers have while clearing out salary. Maybe a prospect instead of Gudas would have been nice, but the value was more than fair for the Flyers.
I understand Coburn will be a UFA, but I think he would have been worth re-signing if he were still here, even at a higher cap-hit (obviously this depends on how much higher). And once again, I was fully in favor of trading for Coburn, your response here seems to be in response to if I said I was against trading him general. I am simply saying I think his return should have been higher. I understand completely why it was made, and agree with it for the most part. I don't have a problem with Gudas, I like him and am excited he is on the team for a number of reasons. I just think another prospect (in addition to Gudas) or another pick, or a better NHLer would have been fair value for Coburn. I'm not talking about their top prospect. I'm not talking about getting Drouin or another first, I'm just thinking a little more would have been fair and I would be all about this trade.
Again, you're ignoring how much a player like Eberle earns. Part of the reason for moving Coburn is to jettison some salary. Eberle makes more than Coburn and and I'd rather have Jake and Simmer over Eberle in all situations. You also don't trade into a position of strength; left wing is the Flyers' position of weakness and that's the only other place a 1-for-1 swap makes sense for Coburn. Coburn for Glencross (+ something else)? Would that have worked for you?... because he's probably the best LW that was moved at the deadline...
Again, Eberle was just something that was discussed previously. I understand the cap issues and positional issues, but again, getting a player like that (who is under a reasonable, albeit expensive, deal given what he can produce) is something you can work around. I don't know exactly what the solution would be, but I think it is worth it to work around (move Simmer down a line? Try someone out on an off wing?).
Pickings were slim and Hextall did a good job for this team moving forward.
To me you come off as reactionary on the small scale move because you always seem to look at the trade/signing on its own and ignore the big picture.
I'm not ignoring the big picture at all. Everyone is coming at me because I said "I'm not a fan" and I think they could have gotten more. I don't think that is some crazy reactionary statement. I understand and support the reasoning behind trading Coburn. Not at all against it. And again, I've been behind trading Coburn since the off-season (maybe even before). I just would have rather kept Coburn for this specific deal and would have liked to have the pot sweetened by one of the other aforementioned pieces. Would this all just go away if I Edited my post to say "meh" instead of what I actually said?
Trading Eberle for Coburn makes no sense for the Oilers. They're in a worse position than we are, and would just be trying to sell Coburn again next year. As we saw with the Petry trade, they're not very good at doing that either.
Great. I'm not saying that Eberle for Coburn was option two and he made the wrong choice. I was using that as a reference because it was a deal that was previously discussed around here. I have no idea if that deal was ever discussed between the two orgs.