The Carter and Richards trades were a necessity because Homer spent years building teams the "wrong" way via trades and free agency, leaving the prospect pool completely empty and the team without cap space.
For sure it was a good recovery, but it would be better if the team weren't in such an untenable situation to begin with. It looks like they've learned their lesson though.
Lucky for us the lockout happened & Clarke wasn't able to trade those guys for old vets like he normally did at the end of his run.
I'm not arguing about now but giving credit where it was due he had a good first year in his tenure.
Off the top of my head . . .
1. Trade for Coburn
2. Sign Read
3. Trade for Leino
4. Trade away Forsberg
5. Trade for Hartnell and Timonen
6. Trade for Pronger (might have been higher if he wasn't injured or we won the Cup)
7. Trade for Carle
8. Trade away Carter
9. Sign Jagr
10. Trade away Richards
Pretty flawed article. Briere had a some great playoff runs but the only reason this is a borderline success and not a huge mistake is another lockout came a long and gave him the compliance buyout to cut that anchor before it got really ugly. Firing a coach 3 games into a season is dumb. You either fire a coach in the off season so you have time to properly search for a new coach and then they can have a full training camp to get their system in place. Or you are committed to a coach and you give him more the 3 games to get it together. Firing him that quickly into the season says to me that he wasn't sure about keeping him and let it ride into the season and when thing when badly then he finally made a decision once training camp and the start of the season was already wasted. Conversely how is the Pronger trade not on there? I know his injury etc dampen it but we might not make the playoffs in 2010 let alone make it to game 6 of the Cup Finals without him. I would go on but typing on an iPad is annoying.
The Pronger trade was definitely great overall, but it's a weird case there. The career ending injury (granted, not Homer's fault at all) and his (as well as his staff's) complete misunderstanding of the 35+ contract rules in the CBA was just flat-out embarrassing.
Maybe they can trade him in summer 2015 to a cheap team that needs to hit the cap floor.
IIRC, you can't trade a guy on IR.
IIRC, you can't trade a guy on IR.
Not sure if agreement between both teams matters or not with IR, but there is no IR over the summer.
I'm not taking away from it. He made some high quality moves to turn it around, but people like to ignore the fact that most of the biggest component in that turnaround as well as the best player on the team currently were inherited and already in the system when he took over. It wasn't all him.
Bad Moves
Jvr
Eminger
Sbisa pick
Pronger trade and signing
bryz
Prospal trade
Kubina trade
shelley
bob trade
versteeg trade
Re-signing Leighton was a terrible move as well. Also the Carcillo trade was ****ing awful.
The problems with Holmgren right here in a nutshell:
He's too aggressive. Sometimes he's so eager to go after the shiny new toy that he doesn't value what he's got sufficiently. Examples: Having to trade next year's Vezina winner for a 2nd rounder to make room for a 50 million dollar goalie that was average for two years before being bought out. You know that goal scoring winger everyone is saying we need to find for Claude Giroux? We already had him, young and locked up for 6 years. And we sent him to Toronto for a 3rd pairing D-man.
Goaltending. The organization either doesn't have anyone who scouts professional goalies well in the front office, or they aren't listening to them. Their track record with amateur goalies hasn't been that good either outside of Bob, but they sort of get a pass on that since nobody besides Nashville/Mitch Korn consistently draft amateur talent that sticks in the NHL (not that many jobs), and they did sign Bob after all.
He doesn't manage the logistics well at all. The Pronger contract, having to trade Upshall + 2nd for an inferior player etc.
His talent is in eyeballing skaters and seeing who's got NHL talent. All of his good moves have been, in my estimation, a result of his considerable skill in this regard. The team trading the best player in a blockbuster deal almost always loses. Yet we won (in my estimation) both the Carter and Richards trades. Coburn trade, Read signing. All of those moves involve getting guys who at the time were contributing in smaller roles than they have been able to fill nicely here in Philly. That's an impressive few moves, any way you slice it.
He's too aggressive. Sometimes he's so eager to go after the shiny new toy that he doesn't value what he's got sufficiently. Examples: Having to trade next year's Vezina winner for a 2nd rounder to make room for a 50 million dollar goalie that was average for two years before being bought out. You know that goal scoring winger everyone is saying we need to find for Claude Giroux? We already had him, young and locked up for 6 years. And we sent him to Toronto for a 3rd pairing D-man.