Now that the dust has settled and I no longer have to kid on to myself that I have other things to do before writing this, I'd like to recall something I posted while absolutely hammered a few hours into the new year:
Can I just say something here
It appears Cody McLeod has become something of a punchline on this board
He contributes a ****load more than 90% of the players on this team over the past 5~ years - by virtue of doing things like moving around and acknowledging the physical existence of the other team. He's not any good, and he should never have been given an A, but he tries. Which is a lot more than a lot of other Avalanche players have been able to say over the years.
McLeod is 4th all time in games played the Avalanche and, given the apparently inevitable coming trades of Duchene and Landeskog, is liable to stay there for some time to come. I think the fact that he broke into the team in 08-09 and leaves it in 16-17 says a lot. He joined a clown show and he leaves one. I should say I'm somewhat disappointed he's gone to a perennial middling non-entity in Nashville. I don't think he'll win anything there but maybe he'll prove me wrong. Based on his first appearance for them he certainly seems capable of providing some sort of inspiration for his new teammates.
For a team that's spent years treating its 4th liners and role players like dirt I'm quite surprised at the criticism aimed at McLeod and Sakic after this trade. For the sort of game McLeod played during his Avalanche career I'm even more surprised at the apparent contempt he's held in by so many on here. He showed more pride and effort for his, our, team than a lot of players we've been forced to suffer over the years. I know he's been treated well by the team, his last contract and alternate captaincy in particular but this isn't something which should be held against him. For the most part, his play warranted that sort of reward.
I think that over the course of his whole Avalanche career there isn't any doubt that McLeod's positive contributions outweigh any negative ones. Whether it's individual moments like the octopus against Detroit (leaving aside the fact that we must have been on the end of a battering in that game since we got hammered in the series) or a career mostly spent being punched in the face in addition to being one of the few who played over his time with any pride there's few who sacrificed as much for the sake of the team as McLeod did.
I don't necessarily think that 4th liners should be heralded as great team legends, especially if their time on their team didn't produce any legitimate success. I also think the most telling part of this trade isn't that the longest tenured player is gone or that the one player symbolic for the whole post-2008 decline of this team is gone but it's what someone said earlier in this thread, that a 4th liner who can't move very well (any more) and who's only really good for fighting is gone. With the amount of false dawns we've seen over the years I'm not going to say that this trade signals any sort of meaningful change in direction of the way the team is run but if we end up with a bottom six full of people who can play hockey, great.
If everybody who played for the Avalanche did so with as much pride and effort as McLeod did we wouldn't be where we are right now. Good luck to him.
