I don't think you understand actual value here.
And I don't think you understand much of anything here. From my personal experience, "asset management" can be a very good thing. It could be real estate, stocks, crypto, sports cards, paintings, athletes for a NHL team, etc... they are all "assets" who have a fluctuating value
If you are another team would you trade for a player that can't be sent down if he does not look good enough for the NHL?
He had zero value, taking on the second with the other 2 guys paid better.
That's exactly the point. Why waive Balcers when he had no value? Play him, build him up and once he is an asset again, sell him. You're rebuilding, the plan should be to fructify your assets.
If you believe he wouldn't be able to build his value up, so why did you acquire him in the first place? It would be admitting that your pro scouting sucks
BUY LOW, SELL HIGH. This is pretty simple but not EASY to do for everybody. A NHL GM should be good at that.
Are we going to waive Erik Brannstrom too because he doesn't fit our long term plans and we won't have a spot for him on LD with Chabot/Sanderson?
The difference is Brannstrom currently has more value than Balcers had but it would still be pretty stupid to not play him, let his value plummet then trade him away for an underwhelming return (like it might happen with Logan Brown)
Dorion absolutely had no obligation to play Cedric Paquette or NOT waive him. Paquette had no trade value. The only reason he was traded is because the Hurricanes were glad to get rid of Dzingel's salary who simply didn't work out for them. And that's without talking that Paquette really didn't want to play for the Senators.
Demelo, Tierney were also better than Balcers at the time of the trade.
The last Stanley cup winner just lost their whole third line.
1) That's weird, DeMelo was thought as a pure throw in. The Sharks didn't even qualify him, nobody claimed him on waivers too. It's in Ottawa that he became a NHL player
2) I'd argue that for people who scouted Chris Tierney before, he had already shown what he was going to be at the NHL level (284 NHL games with SJ), a decent/good 3rd line center if given the opportunity, or a below average one as soon as you start having some depth in your forward group (like the Sens right now). We didn't acquire anybody this off-season, we even traded Dadonov and I'm still confident that Tierney won't be a top-9 forward on the Sens this season. I was very vocal that we should have traded him in summer 2019 at his peak value (after career season). Never really understood why they absolutely wanted to keep him, could have signed a replacement player in UFA for "only money"
3) The Lightning didn't lose their third line because of mismanagement but more as a result of top notch management for a long period of time, they just had/have too many good/great players and that's expensive. Can't fit everyone. Did I really need to explain this or deep down you already knew?
A possible "triple peat" up against the cap vs a rebuilding team barely reaching the cap floor losing a decent young NHLer on waivers to make sure they wouldn't waive Artem Anisimov, Alex Galchenyuk OR Cedric Paquette.
Sens could have easily had Balcers among their 13/14 forwards, waive one of the three guys above and put that guy on the taxi squad once he clears. You rotate the NO VALUE players until you have been PROVEN that Rudolf Balcers isn't NHL caliber. Simple as that
I'm not sure how anyone is still debating that, it was stupid plain and simple. I just made a ridiculous profit % on an investment from 2 years ago (like with the EK trade). Does it mean I should be careless with other assets because things are going well?
