All this talk about Houle having an excuse because he had to cut costs...which may be true but...
Picking pretty much all busts with his 1st round picks had nothing to do with cutting costs...unless you are saying he was specifically picking busts so he doesn't pick players who would become expensive later, lol. (FYI, Matt Higgins, Jason Ward, Eric Chouinourd, 1999th 1st pick traded, Marcel Hossa and Ron Hainsey)
Trading Scott Thornton for Lind was a cost cutting measure?
And for trading his high cost vets, he also threw in Darcy Tucker in with the trade of Richer for virtually all scrubs...
And...last I checked, trading Roy had nothing to do with cutting costs....