Wow, I get pretty sick of reading all the whiners post their revisionist, hindsight-filled, fact bending ideas. Rage, your arguments are simplistic to say the least. Lets take a look at what you guys are arguing.
To begin with, Lowe had a long drawn out affair once already with the Comrie fiasco. Comrie was demanding more money as a RFA, and Lowe chose to play hardball with him seeing as how Comrie had held the team ransom on his first contract. Comrie pouted and so it became clear he would not play for the team again. Lowe showed more than enough patience and guts in letting Comrie rot for as long as need be in order for him to get the best deal possible. After months of waiting however, it was pretty clear that Comrie's value wasn't increasing the longer he sat out. In fact, it probably went down. And that's why, after months of trying to get the best deal possible, the best other teams were offering were draft picks and prospects. Clearly, we did not get full value on Comrie. A 1st, 3rd and Woywitka were not an equal return for a young player who had already scored 30 goals, but it was the best deal available. No one was offering a similarly talented youngster in return. Add to this that Lowe had a lot of pressure on him to deal Comrie and get a return for him.
Fast forward 3 years later, and Pronger, the guy Lowe was planning on building a team around that would challenge for the cup starts saying that he might not be happy in Edmonton. Lowe hopes that the cup run will change his mind and they agree to discuss it in the offseason. Days after losing to Carolina, Lowe and Pronger briefly bring up the situation, and again Pronger agrees to discuss the matter with Lowe later. Pronger then leaves with his family on holiday and leaks to the media that he wishes to leave Edmonton. This comes as a shock to Lowe, as during their last discussion Pronger had not revealed he had come to such an absolute decision. On this same day, Florida trades Luongo to Vancouver for Bertuzzi. Now, where some you st*pid f***s get off thinking that somewhere in there, Lowe should have traded for Luongo I have no idea. Was he supposed to have traded Pronger before even having discussed what his decision was going to be? Was Lowe somehow supposed to have known that Pronger was going to be an ass and leak his decision to the media, thereby lowering his trade value? I suppose this is where PunjabiOil and his mystical eastern powers of knowing the future would have come in handy.
I suppose had Luongo not been traded that same day, and Lowe had had some time to work with, trading for him could have been a possibility. But now he was left with having to move a guy who made it publicly known he wasn't going to return. Already at a disadvantage because of Pronger's move, he decided that he didn't want a Comrie situation all over again. I don't know why some of you think that Pronger would have played next season. I don't think he would have shown up in Edmonton. True, he had a contract, but that didn't stop Yashin from doing the same thing a few years prior. There was also the possibility of his hold-out lowering his value even more, such as in the Comrie case. Even if he did show up, it would have been a big distraction to the team and it could have affected Pronger's performance, also leading to lower value.
Lowe also felt it would be best to trade him sooner than later, as those teams that were looking for a top defenceman would soon be signing UFAs, and that pool of interested teams would shrink. Unfortunately, (and this is the part Rage seems unable to comprehend) no one was offering a superstar in trade for Pronger. Hell, no one was even offering a star. It was widely reported that Florida was not willing to part with Horton and Bouwmeester. Likewise, Toronto felt Steen and Kaberle were too steep a price. Is that information getting through Rage? Kaberle and Steen. There were no teams offering Hossa or any of the other stars you mentioned. And nobody really cares what you "think" may have been offered, since its all speculation and clearly not true. If any teams had offered a player of Hossa-like quality, rest assured Lowe would have been interested. And really, you can't blame teams for this. Defencemen like Chara and Jovanovski were going to be available as UFAs shortly. And while they may have ended up costing more money-wise, you didn't need to give up any players to acquire them.
Thus Lowe was asking teams for a good young forward and defenceman. Anaheim undoubtedly offered the best package as Lowe finalized they trade with them, despite the fact that they were in the same conference. Lowe undoubtedly would have preferred moving him to the east. Finally, in response to dumb remarks like Lowe traded Pronger for "scrubs" because he didn't want to spend money... then why would he offer Chara $7 million? Obviously, Chara chose to sign with Boston in the end, but if you don't want to spend, then why even offer that money? What if Chara had agreed? Was Lowe going to say "oops, I didn't mean it"? I guess you can cue the idiot conspiracy theorists now. And yes, Lowe chose to not sign McKee, Kubina or whoever else was available for the money that they eventually did for the same reason he chose not to offer Smyth more. They simply aren't worth that much. If the team is going to pay that much for someone, then its going to be someone who will make a large impact on the team. As for Mark Eaton... is it even necessary to comment on that?
