He had 47pts during a career year, there are players on the Habs who are just as good and have the potential to be even better.
But really it comes down to this
- He had a career year, we both acknowledge he's not going to maintain that pace.
- we know he's injury prone and the likelihood of him missing more games this coming season is high.
- the Habs are loaded with these similar middle 6ish tweener wingers. Why not trim some fat and get some picks, because you're going to need them if you want to acquire a top 4 Dman or a legit top line forward.
And if the GM says that he's going to go with you and speed, then there should be no suprise that he trades Shaw.
If it allows one of our prospects a spot on the team...isn't that what we all want?
- his productivity, .75ppg, was pretty impactful. That level of productivity is harder to replace than "47pts", stated that way.
- I never acknowledged that he definitively "won't maintain that pace"... if he stayed here, or if he plays in the top-6 in Chicago, I'd bet on him maintaining something in the .7ppg range... no reason to doubt he can maintain it any more or less than Danault, Domi, Tatar, Drouin, Armia et. can maintain or exceed their career PB years from last season.
It's interesting disconnect in your argument here... since you've identified that you think our existing players can improve on their career PB's to replace Shaw's productivity, yet are certain that he can't maintain... Curious...
- yes, he's injury prone. So was Markov... good thing we didn't trade him for a mediocre return when he came back eh
- Shaw was the best of our "middle 6 ish tweeners" last year... and the only one outside of Gallagher that plays with aggression and that level of grit... making him an important roster balancing player. His productivity last year was an added bonus to the other elements he brought that his peers lack.
- "why not trim the fat"?
1- as has been i think very clearly evidenced, Shaw's performance last year was far from redundant... dismissing our most productive winger and forward leader in hits "fat" might suit your argument, but it doesn't match what took place on the ice for our team last year.
2- re-allocating resources to improve the team should always be the GM's focus. My argument has remained that MB poorly handled that in this case because all he achieved was downgrading the roster in exchange for picks that were, at best, a mediocre return for what the player was contributing.
3- we've needed to acquire a top-4 dman and top-6 fwd upgrade since 2012. to assume that this move was the necessary catalyst to achieve those long standing needs is.... a reach (most polite way i can put it).
The GM says a lot of things, and rarely does anything that actually coherently lines up to what he says... that's been the most consistent thing about the tenure of this GM...
but that reality aside, even if we grant the "get young, get fast" argument, getting a mediocre return for Shaw when the most likely internal replacement is the slower Armia doesn't fit... nor does trading for Thompson and then re-signing him... nor does signing Chiarot for a premium... so at best it would have been a stupid time to use that rational to make that trade.
Which prospect do we have that legitimately can step into a top-6 role and contribute .7+ppg? MB certainly likes to think that playing guys out of position works seamlessly... Domi managed it, Drouin failed spectacularly... Is planning on Suzuki or Poehling to step in, at wing, and produce at a quality top-6 rate from day one really the intent?
Personally, no, I would not want to see either of our top forward prospects playing in a top-6 role to start the year (unless they utterly surprised come camp, not impossible, but unlikely).
Also, with CJ as the coach, do you really think he'd bump Poehling or Suzuki onto Domi's wing before cycling through Armia, Byron, Lehkonen, Weal, Cousins first? That means they get slotted into a 4th line role, which would be the worst case scenario... or more likely, as i've stated from the beginning, we've simply managed to downgrade our top-6 bc the internal replacement won't likely match Shaw's productivity... and the player moving up by default means a lesser player takes his spot on the 3rd/4th line, so we've also effectively downgraded our bottom-6... where our top young prospect plays C....
So, i hope for the final time, i'll reiiterate that this move, on paper as of today, had the only effect of downgrading our roster. The return to justify doing so, makes no sense as it was mediocre at best for what Shaw had most recently shown as an NHL player.
a million different things could transpire that either accentuates this asset management failure, or masks it, but at the time of the trade... stupid decision that neither supports the publicly stated (since you hold his public comments so highly) objective of making the playoffs -which would mean improving from last year, nor came with such a high compensation as to warrant the downgrade at this time.
