Let's just get this out in the open here...Joe Sakic may be a great hockey player, and a better person. His team is dead last in the NHL and he's the GM...SO he's not a good GM, it's that simple. 0 playoff appearances since he's officially been GM. He is living off his accomplishments as a player and person in Colorado.
So people giving Joe Sakic some benefit of the doubt that the twitter rumors are in no way possible, that they aren't valid speculation, are just being ridiculous. Joe Sakic is as good of a GM as the guy who's team is dead last all season can be good. This would then seep into things like trade discussions/decisions and how he generally goes about his business...that of the worst performing team in the league. ******...
It's not that far fetched to speculate that Sakic **** the bed and was acting a fool, key word is speculate. As far as Joe Sakic being a good guy goes, I am sure loads of people in the media are doing him a solid if the time comes. To me, it's cut and dry, Sakic all season was trying to move Duchene and Landeskog...and didn't, if nobody was going to meet his asking price, it would have been a non issue. It would have been "they're on the market, but nobody will make a move because Sakic has too high of an asking price"...back in December. Not the day after the trade deadline.
tl;dr Nice job Joe Sakic, your team is dead last in the NHL and you've got the same group next season. Same group of losers and their crappy mentality. Bring those top end prospects into that "winning" culture.
Sakic deserves some benefit of the doubt solely because of how he did the only previous time he had to trade a core piece; as he got his asking price for ROR who was a year closer to UFA, had a much more difficult negotiation history, who was much more certain to leave Colorado in UFA, and who simply wasn't as good as Dutchy is. As Zadorov is that potential top pairing dman we need, Compher is coming along beautifully as a young middle 6er, and that pick was turned into AJ Greer & Cam Morrison; two very intriguing PWF prospects with top 6 potential. If he gets a similar package...only with a safer or higher ceiling'd defensive piece...we'lol all be thrilled.
Joe may have a crap record in UFA, he may be too gunshy to wheel n deal like a stud, and he's yet to kill it during a TDL; but so far he's earned a little faith that he won't pull the trigger on a core player trade without getting the pieces he needs...and maybe not even then given the trades he passed on last summer...and neither the Isles nor Pens have the piece he needs to make a duchene trade; while MTL, BOS & OTT don't appear to have put that piece on the table, and the Canes collapse knocked them out of the race in-season.
Also this narrative that Joe has been trying heavily to move these guys all year is a little off. He's been taking calls on Duchene and Landy going back to at least early last season; but he's in no rush to move them and has little reason not to wait until after the expansion draft if nobody was willing to knock his socks off.
Ultimately this coming trade will greatly effect his legacy and either establish that despite his flaws on deadline day and July 1st, he can nail the biggest moves; or show that he just got lucky that GMTM was so desperate for ROR and hates Russians.
PS this season has been a perfect storm of things going wrong: key injuries, bad puck luck, a roster assembled for one coach being run by a totally different coach, a psychologically fragile team having their confidence wrecked before the season by having their beloved coach bail on them, the goalies that they relied on for confidence going to s*** this season, old guys falling off cliffs even harder than could've been expected, young guys getting injuries right as they were to be afforded opportunities to secure bigger jobs (Zadorov recently and Bigras to start the season), etc.
Everything that could go wrong this season has; so though the roster was flawed, our depth was weak, and the defense still needed a big boost from our kids; this season hasn't been representative of the team assembled. This should be a bottom 10 team, no doubt, but this shouldn't be a historically inept team.
It would most certainly give us a better chance at making a regular playoff appearance !
