Consistently trading players at their highest value is a great way to **** off the rest of your team and create a reputation where UFAs won't want to sign here. You mention CHI. It's one thing to trade a Versteeg or let a guy like Campbell go, who's your 4th defenseman. It's another thing to trade your top players.
Gomez, Redden, Richards, Gaborik, (Potentially Staal, Girardi, Stepan), Dubs, Brass
all jettisoned in the midst of fairly high or flat out high paying contracts. These are not the names of top players at the time they were traded/cut. Outside of Gabs and Brass, who were still quality players but not top players, these guys all failed miserably to hold up their end of the value they got on the contract. These guys used the NYR to get paid massive amounts of money and their play dropped off immediately to levels where they didn't deserve half of what they were earning. I'd bet Gomez was thrilled to be making 7 mil a year to score a goal or 2 all season. Bus rides might suck, but Redden was getting 6 mil a year to play against Kris Newbury's instead of Crosby or Ovie.
Richards is probably still counting all the excessive amount of money he earned. At a time when we were still giving him over 6 mil a year no other team wanted to even give him 3 so he signs with Chicago for less than that to play for a top team. He's even still poking his teeth into the team's business. Doesn't seem like a pissed off tale to me
I seriously doubt these are cautionary tales to other top FA's. An extra 3-5 million a year more than what I'm worth? Oh man but I have to get traded? Total deal breaker. Hell, guys like Nash and MSL begged to be traded here 'even after all that'. We keep getting all these prized prospect UFA's too. Keep in mind the day to day treatment of players while with the team beats what other teams do.
Nash, Hank, McD, Jagr, MSL Drury.
All these guys are either still here on their big contracts or they got to finish on their own terms. With the exception of Drury who was nothing but hot garbage for pretty much his entire stay here, all of these guys earned at least a degree of their pay. Drury is STILL earning from those days with a cushy FO gig AND he f***ed the team by taking a buyout before remembering he wanted to retire. Clearly he didn't hate his experiences here all that much if he's still lurking with the franchise. MSL sucked imo but at least he served some purpose in his first season here. Jagr got ****ed and should've gotten another contract here.
In general, no one is going out and **** talking their time with the franchise or complaining about the way it ended so how is their going to be some kind of toxic reputation? So if the NYR trade Stepan it is certainly not indicative of a pattern of trading guys at their highest value. Not to mention his highest value was years ago. He may have a single great season left in him but more likely, with his "physical" attributes he's already on the decline.
