No, Murray even said he there was a possibility later for a Nashville to Spezza deal. I can find those quotes too if you need me too. Poile closed the door on Spezza and moved on to Neal, but my point was, Poile was not full court pressing to save his job. He was offended someone had him on their no trade list.
Doesn't matter now, I agree, but Poile didn't add someone because above all else he's not going to overspend, even if he job is on the line, he's not driving up salaries.
IMHO, we've only gone cheaper since the cap team comments. We traded Legwand's 4.5M salary for Jarnkrok, Erat's 4.5m for Forsberg, and Klein's 3m contract for Vols 1M.
We did increase Hornqvist and Spalings, but not to the tune of the 12M we've saved over the last 2 seasons.
I know this rant should be somewhere else, I just get tired of the excuses all the time. IMHO Poile has to do better.
Feeling extremely frustrated.
We've gone cheaper for the short term, but you have to look at why, and then you come to the conclusion that none of those had anything to do with saving money.
Erat wanted out, Poile wasn't trying to dump him at the time. The fact he got Forsberg out of the deal is insane when you think about it.
Legwand was at the end of his contract, and as much as we all *****ed about getting nothing for Suter, Poile wasn't going to make that mistake again. The fact he got Jarnkrok and a 2nd is mind blowing really.
Klein definitely wasn't about the money, dude was on a sweetheart of a contract. It was a move made to help the roster. It didn't work out obviously but in this game no one is 100%.
Now had those moves been made to shed the contracts, I would share your frustration, the fact is though they were simply good hockey moves.
The Spezza deal I believe has all come down to timing. Poile wanted a deal done before the Draft, the agent saying to give him 3-4 days was basically the agent nicely saying it wasn't going to happen. Did it tick Poile off? Yeah it did, but he retooled the offer elsewhere and actually got a better deal. Now could he have maybe done another offer for Spezza? Its possible, but frankly I think he already had read the writing on the wall, he would of been wasting his time so he didn't bother.
I certainly don't think the moves have been to save money, and I certainly don't think not signing FA has anything to do with saving money. He just isn't going to go out and spend stupid money on 3rd line forwards. He already tried that the previous year and how did that turn out?