I don't think that's being fair to Brunner. Maybe he's different in Jersey, but he was willing to go to the boards and engage in scrums last season. He sucked at it, and would lose pretty much every battle because he wasn't strong enough on the puck, but he tried.
He was a really good complimentary player, a bit one way, but could have a role on a team.
He could have
had a role on our team. With how Nyquist & Tatar have played this year with the way Jurco/Pulkkinen have played in the AHL with the fact that Sheahan, Ferraro & Callahan are out of waiver options next year Brunner doesn't fit into our team.
Even if we plug him in to the 4th line for this year where does he play next year? Ideally he's on a 3rd line that's set up for scoring so he really has no place on a 4th line, especially at his caphit.
If we go into next year with this:
Zetterberg-Datsyuk-XXXX
Franzen-Weiss-Nyquist
Tatar-Helm-Abdelkader/XXXX
Miller-Andersson-XXXX/Abdelkader
XXXX-XXXX
We'd have 2 spots where Brunner could play. Ideally he isn't on your top line & he won't be a 13th/14th forward so he'd have to be in the 3rd line scoring role, also don't forgot that we have Ferraro, Sheahan & Callahan needing spots. I'd have no problem with that if it wasn't for the fact that he's getting 2.5M dollars & we could promote Jurco who could bring more to the table at a lower cost.