GDT: Free Agent Frenzy - July 13th

[Beef Invictus]

Fletcher has not made a single move rooted in sound analytics in 13 years. It's nothing but fit, feel, and roles. Maybe sometimes the analytics happen to line up with what he wants, but overall the data department is an annoyance he ignores.

 

[GKJ]

Reality is, we have no idea what our playears REAL value are because Chuck is such an awful negotiator AND decision maker. We just had 3 examples the last 2 days:

Not willing to trade a 1st to get JG long term, but no issue doing it for 1 guaranteed year of Risto
Buying out Oskar, he signs for almost the same amount and had multiple suitors.
Signing Deslauriers for 4 years...christ

Again, 2 days ago we had no free agents with tge possibility to make the team better in free agency. Somehow, made the team worse using more cap space. Par for the course for Chuckles.

Yeah, Lindblom getting the deal that he did, they should’ve been able to be in position to trade him, even for another player given what you did with the cap space, or even for someone who wasn’t getting qualified. Give yourself a shot at talking to someone where you have the leverage. Instead they saw the buyout coming.

Went to the team that hired their GM 8 days ago.

 

[GKJ]

Fletcher has not made a single move rooted in sound analytics in 13 years. It's nothing but fit, feel, and roles. Maybe sometimes the analytics happen to line up with what he wants, but overall the data department is an annoyance he ignores.

The great irony is the best player he’s traded for in his off-seasons, he gave up the least to get. The only trade everyone looked around and said ‘wow this is good’

Also has seen the smallest return from him.

 

[MayonnaiseOreo]

He was around when they signed useless goon Jody Shelley.

He'd be taking warmups with Johnny Hockey though.

 

[flyersnorth]

From LeBrun's column in the Athletic...

However, there were reports Wednesday morning that perhaps Dallas had nudged ahead in the Burns trade talks. The Carolina GM had reason to worry as Burns has an offseason home in the Dallas area and, of course, would have enjoyed getting reunited with forward Joe Pavelski, coach Peter DeBoer and popular PR man Tom Holy, all formerly from the Sharks.​

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Carolina put together the better package though, with goalie prospect Eetu Makiniemi being the key attraction for San Jose. In return, the ‘Canes got their replacement for Tony DeAngelo who was traded to Philadelphia last week.​

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(As an aside, kudos to rookie Sharks GM Mike Grier, on the job for eight days and manages to move one of the cumbersome contracts right off the bat.)​

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Grier has had 8 days to figure out how to move a bad contract to a 37 year old defenseman with THREE years remaining.

And he did it.

Chuck? Not so much.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Yeah, Lindblom getting the deal that he did, they should’ve been able to be in position to trade him, even for another player given what you did with the cap space, or even for someone who wasn’t getting qualified. Give yourself a shot at talking to someone where you have the leverage. Instead they saw the buyout coming.

Went to the team that hired their GM 8 days ago.

Fletcher has to be near the top in terms of handing out contracts that need buyouts. Probably wasnt hard to predict.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

Fletcher has to be near the top in terms of handing out contracts that need buyouts. Probably wasnt hard to predict.

A certain poster believes that and retaining money while attaching picks is good management. It’s what the good teams do.

Please ignore this narrative has no basis in reality.

 

[BiggE]

No one should feel guilty about not wanting to follow this shitshow. Find whatever hockey you enjoy. It's supposed to be fun.



Sometimes you have to move to a different fiefdom, but you'll still be collecting arbitrary taxes on the hopes and dreams of some poor fanbase. These unkillable wraiths wander from city-state to city-state, cracking open your bones and replacing the marrow with congealed platitudes like "harder to play against" whispered out of the corners of their creepy mouths.

There are plenty of traditional hockey people that still want to get better. Most of those names we'll never hear, but they're the ones that should be celebrated when these teams win Cups. They pushed the league forward at massive personal risk knowing that less than 1 percent of 1 percent of hockey fans will ever know who they were. They're not making 7 figures either. They're probably driving to a rink in Brampton in a rental car with torn cloth seats right now.

You want to lose all hope for this sport? Go talk to an NHL front office member and then do the same thing for MLB. It got to the point where there were so many people doing good public quantitative work that weren't getting hired that baseball started hiring them instead. Manny Perry had 4 or 5 major hockey projects that should have written his ticket into any NHL org he wanted. He finally gave up, made a baseball model with a full-on shitposting name (Big Boomers and something or other), and had an MLB job in less than a year.

I’m at least slightly interested in the Phantoms, though less so if Brink is injured.

 

[Curufinwe]

Burns at 3 x 5.28m would be better than the Risto or TDA contracts. He’s old but still going strong.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

Most people will be happy if you have a chance to succeed. That's what fandom is. If you give people anything to buy into that looks coherent, they'll give it a shot. I don't think it's possible to grasp just how far they've fallen in the last 4 years until you sit down and sift through it. They're worse off than they were on every axis. Every single one. And they seem to be doubling down on the major reasons for it.

 

[flyershockey]

I wasn't a fan of giving JG a long term deal because I'm not sure the team gets all that much better overall, but damn, when's the last time a FA of his level actually wanted to come to Philly? In the cap era, Philly has dropped way down the list of places that players want to go to.

Regardless of how you feel on his deal, it's terrible that Fletch DOA'd it 18 months ago. They didn't need to move JVR, or at least not as desperately, to bring in JG if Fletch didn't punch Risto's lottery ticket last spring.

 

[Lindberg]

Supposedly his wife was against NY area and they held out hoping Chuck would do something.

I guess she was really adamantly against NY.

Very strange to me. "I want to live near Philly, but NYC.... uhhh no"

These people have enough money to buy a nice house in the burbs of northern NJ, a penthouse in Manhattan, etc. and then he goes to Columbus?

NY can be a bit grimy but the food, music, culture can't be beat. Unlike anywhere else in the US.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Very strange to me. "I want to live near Philly, but NYC.... uhhh no"

These people have enough money to buy a nice house in the burbs of northern NJ, a penthouse in Manhattan, etc. and then he goes to Columbus?

NY can be a bit grimy but the food, music, culture can't be beat. Unlike anywhere else in the US.

Her hatred must be on Homer Simpson levels

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

Most people will be happy if you have a chance to succeed. That's what fandom is. If you give people anything to buy into that looks coherent, they'll give it a shot. I don't think it's possible to grasp just how far they've fallen in the last 4 years until you sit down and sift through it. They're worse off than they were on every axis. Every single one. And they seem to be doubling down on the major reasons for it.

Yeah, but it could have be worse. We could be cannibals.

 

[Beef Invictus]

Yeah, but it could have be worse. We could be cannibals.

How is that worse? If anything that opens up a fascinating range of new solutions.

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

Very strange to me. "I want to live near Philly, but NYC.... uhhh no"

These people have enough money to buy a nice house in the burbs of northern NJ, a penthouse in Manhattan, etc. and then he goes to Columbus?

NY can be a bit grimy but the food, music, culture can't be beat. Unlike anywhere else in the US.

You couldn’t pay me to live anywhere near NYC.

 

[JojoTheWhale]

Yeah, but it could have be worse. We could be cannibals.

Josh Harris owns the Sixers and Devils, not the Flyers.

 

[Lindberg]

You couldn’t pay me to live anywhere near NYC.

To each their own.

Lots of Americans love the suburbs but personally I think they are the worst place in America to live (and there are a lot of those). Boring, mindless, and soul crushing.

The music in NYC alone is top notch. The jazz, jam bands, and other talented musicians that come in and out of NYC is just head and shoulders above anywhere else.

 

[wankstifier]

Wonder if Gaudreau shared with his buddies that he was expecting to join them. Fletcher might’ve turned his intended leadership group against him

 

[Hollywood Cannon]

How is that worse? If anything that opens up a fascinating range of new solutions.

You can always choose to be a cannibal at the moment. I’m talking forced cannibalism.

 

[Chinatown88]

 

[Curufinwe]

Kadri still out there and…

 

[JojoTheWhale]

To each their own.

Lots of Americans love the suburbs but personally I think they are the worst place in America to live (and there are a lot of those). Boring, mindless, and soul crushing.

The music in NYC alone is top notch. The jazz, jam bands, and other talented musicians that come in and out of NYC is just head and shoulders above anywhere else.

I'm a former Village resident.

NYC is worth it as long as you feel it's this unique. If it loses that in your mind, you cannot wait to get anywhere else, even if you still love visiting. Or at least that was my experience.

 

[flyersnorth]

Fletcher has to be near the top in terms of handing out contracts that need buyouts. Probably wasnt hard to predict.

I was willing to give Fletch a shot at the beginning. I believe my main complaint was that his teams tended to be quite vanilla, and he is quite vanilla, so I thought the Flyers would just blend in with the tapestry.

Man, I never thought it would get worse than vanilla. I've been a fan since the 80s, and Fletcher is absolutely 100% the worst GM I have ever witnessed for this franchise. Just no plan, no coherency, no self-reflection, no course correction... just a long string of mediocre to awful moves, and he has united an entire fanbase in hopelessness.

Fletcher doesn't deserve to have the Flyers fall ass-backwards into Bedard.

 

[Curufinwe]