- Aug 28, 2009
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It’s entirely possible that the Gru negotiation went like the Kuemper one.What's frustrating about Sakic and those comments about "he helped us as much as we helped him" is that he went out and spent a boatload to get Darcy Kuemper.
If you seriously are of the opinion that Grubauer wasn't all that and a bag of chips, then you need to sign one of the 5,000 UFA goalies that are average and believe that the team can prop them up.
Mrazek is making 3.8M
Rittich is making 1.25M
Holtby is making 2M
Halak is making 1.5M
Reimer is making 2.25M
Raanta is making 2M
I'm not saying that would be my strategy from the get-go, but if you're so confident in your team's ability to suppress shots and be the reason why a goaltender gets a Vezina nomination, then bring in one of the bargain bin guys to tandem with Francouz and spend those other assets to make the team around them even better.
Nothing about what Sakic did makes sense. Like I get it, he needed a starter and got caught not only in a bidding war, but a bidding war for one of like two starting goalies readily available (the other being Gibson). But the sequence of events and decisions is baffling.
They might have come close to agreeing and then Seattle came in with a higher offer, longer term, NMC, and they told Joe to match it. He said no, and it was already too late at that point. Other goalies had signed.
It’s unlike Joe to be backed into a corner. I suspect Gru may have turned the negotiation on them.