Rumor: Rumors and Proposals Thread: Any More Moves Before Preseason?

[TheNumber4]

Again...the player has final say and if that player doesnt want to deal with the brutal travel playing in Edmonton then so be it. Also...players use other teams as bargaining tools all the time...I suspect that was happening here.

Just another thing to throw out there....
Perhaps Brassard also felt that he would be used in a top 6 role on Long Island instead of as a 3rd line centre. When you couple that with the travel then maybe it just isnt worth the extra money to him.


Also...you dont know if Hollland has something in the works with Puljujarvi and needs cap space so he make that situation work....so he had a ceiling to work with to sign Brassard.

There are a ton of variables here and I have just mentioned a few.
To suggest this is a fail for Holland is extremely narrow minded.

There is more to this than saying...Brassard is a good player (debatable) ...Holland wasnt able to sign him...thats a fail for Holland.

All those things you said is all speculation adding to your conclusion that Holland didn’t miss out. So why can’t I use more solid speculation (that the Oilers tried for Brassard) to come to the conclusion that Holland failed. Your viewpoint based on speculation is no more valid than mine based on speculation but atleast mine has some insider knowledge backing it. We wanted Brassard. We failed to get him. Assuming George isn’t a LIAR. Those are facts. Which leads to the very simple and straightforward conclusion we failed in acquiring the free agent we thought would help us.

It doesn’t matter what you speculate for why Brassard don’t want to be here. Maybe we dug in at 1M and NYI went to 1.25M stealing him from us. Again that’s a fail. No matter what scenario you can speculate on it’s a fail. Cause NYI got their man and we didn’t.

 

[TheNumber4]

We lost the sweepstakes of a soon to be 32 year old bargain bin player who was god awful last year, what an ~epic fail~ by Ken Holland

Never said it was an epic fail. But specifically a small fail. And these wins and losses all add up to build a winner or not.

But sure whatever, if Brassard goes on to revive his career and pot 20 goals this season while we go and sign Reider 2.0 maybe then you’ll get how shit works in a league where your success is relative to 30 competing teams.

 

[guymez]

All those things you said is all speculation adding to your conclusion that Holland didn’t miss out. So why can’t I use more solid speculation (that the Oilers tried for Brassard) to come to the conclusion that Holland failed. Your viewpoint based on speculation is no more valid than mine based on speculation but atleast mine has some insider knowledge backing it. We wanted Brassard. We failed to get him. Assuming George isn’t a LIAR. Those are facts. Which leads to the very simple and straightforward conclusion we failed in acquiring the free agent we thought would help us.

It doesn’t matter what you speculate for why Brassard don’t want to be here. Maybe we dug in at 1M and NYI went to 1.25M stealing him from us. Again that’s a fail. No matter what scenario you can speculate on it’s a fail. Cause NYI got their man and we didn’t.

The only insider info we know is that Holland was bidding for Brassards services. Thats it...thats all we know.
Nothing more. Everything else is speculation...thats my point.

You are assuming that more money would have sealed the deal. You are assuming that Holland even had the extra cap space to offer Brassard more money. You are assuming that Holland just decided that Brassrad wasnt worth the extra money. You are assuming that it (Brassard not signing in Edmonton) was all on Holland.
You are assuming a lot here to prop up your conclusion.

If in your mind not getting the player (despite how little we know about this situation) is a fail then so be it.
I dont agree at all but you are entitled to believe what you want...even if you have virtually no supporting information to back up your conclusion.

 

[TheNumber4]

I'll say this last point cause its getting annoying reiterating very simple facts.

We were happy when we learned we won the Justin Schultz sweepstakes, props were given to our GM for beating out competing GM offers and acquiring what was thought to be at the time a nice piece for our team.

We were happy when Nygard chose us over our provincial rivals. A win for Holland no? We get the sought after speedy euro winger and our provincial rivals who also wanted him DONT.

So there's 2 players we identified at the time that could help, we signed them beating out the competing offers, and we rightfully congratulated the GMs of those signings for a job well done. Props were given for the "wins".

Now here's Brassard, a player we wanted (according to the best available information out there) and we failed to get him. It's the OPPOSITE as the examples as above, those examples being "wins" for the GMs. So what's the opposite of a win everyone? Guymez you want to ring in with an answer, I'm sure you must know this one?

 

[pabst blue ribbon]

Never said it was an epic fail. But specifically a small fail. And these wins and losses all add up to build a winner or not.

But sure whatever, if Brassard goes on to revive his career and pot 20 goals this season while we go and sign Reider 2.0 maybe then you’ll get how **** works in a league where your success is relative to 30 competing teams.

"Learn how the league works"

Brassard has scored 20 goals twice in his long career, Brassard got crushed at both ends of the ice last year, Derick Brassard got outproduced by Milan Lucic at 5v5 last year of all people.

To top it all off, he's 32 years old and doesn't provide anything of value defensively, I'm perfectly fine with the Oilers not wasting a roster spot on him

 

[TheNumber4]

"Learn how the league works"

Brassard has scored 20 goals twice in his long career, Brassard got crushed at both ends of the ice last year, Derick Brassard got outproduced by Milan Lucic at 5v5 last year of all people.

To top it all off, he's 32 years old and doesn't provide anything of value defensively, I'm perfectly fine with the Oilers not wasting a roster spot on him

I'm of the opinion that Brassard who scored 14 goals last year on a "bad" year for him and has enough experience in this league to know at least how not to make rookie mistakes would have helped this team quite a bit at a very cheap, risk free 1.25M for 1 year contract. Especially when you look at the alternatives that we've tried in the past like Reider and way past his expiry date Brodziak.

In any case, it doesn't really matter what we think of his prospects this season when determining if Holland succeeded or not. Fact is, by all indications Holland and friends identified Brassard as a target and missed.

 

[GhostfaceWu]

I got money on Vanek having a more prouctive year next year and that is with him having no contract currently.

 

[Jumptheshark]

Man some oiler fans on line are having a negative reaction to Brassard not signing.

Question I have were we even close? Almost right after George's tweet several media guys shot down the idea.

I think there might have been a single phone call to see if Brassard had any interest and he did not

 

[nexttothemoon]

One thing about Vanek is the guy is pretty consistent... doesn't really have bad down years... so in theory you should get a fairly decent player... of course he's 35 so he may eventually fall off a cliff, but there's no reason to really "expect" that to happen because some players can play into their late 30's and still produce decently and just sort of trail off slowly instead of falling off a cliff... which may be what Vanek does.

I'd have plenty of time for Vanek because being a RHS and being a bit of a sniper... there's always room for someone like that in the lineup... especially on this team who don't have a lot of "snipers" outside of the obvious few.


Another guy that STILL hasn't been signed is Oscar Lindberg and signing him for cheap would be a good move as well. Lindberg is decent defensively as well which isn't a bad ability in the bottom 6.

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

Back in May/June I believe it was on the 31 Thoughts podcast that it sounded like Vanek has played his last game in the NHL.

Since free agency started I haven't heard his name at all by any insiders/media

 

[nexttothemoon]

Back in May/June I believe it was on the 31 Thoughts podcast that it sounded like Vanek has played his last game in the NHL.

Since free agency started I haven't heard his name at all by any insiders/media

Hadn't heard that podcast.

Maybe he just wants to ride off into the sunset with the $73 million he's made in the NHL and feels it's not worth risking another year playing for a low salary.

 

[Took a pill in Sbisa]

Hadn't heard that podcast.

Maybe he just wants to ride off into the sunset with the $73 million he's made in the NHL and feels it's not worth risking another year playing for a low salary.

It's great. Friedman and Marek

 

[Dazed and Confused]

I admit I'd have more time for Vanek than Brassard, as a skilled RHS is a bigger need than a 4th skilled LH centre.

However is Vanek that much of an upgrade over Gagner in the same role? (A middle 6 offensive specialist).

I'm leaning towards being fine with Gagner and Chiasson as the middle 6 RWs, or letting one the kids like Yamamoto, Benson, Marody or possibly Puljujarvi, plus guys like Jurco, Nygård, and Haas take a spot.

Draisaitl-McDavid-Kassian
Neal-RNH-Yama/Pulju/other/Gags
Granlund-Haas-Chiasson
Khaira-Gags/Brodziak/Cave-Archibald

 

[nexttothemoon]

It's great. Friedman and Marek

Just found the part of the June 4th podcast where they talked about Vanek...

31 Thoughts Podcast: A note on 10 pending NHL UFAs - Sportsnet.ca

... right around the 9:50 mark.

 

[ConnorMcNugesaitl]

We lost the sweepstakes of a soon to be 32 year old bargain bin player who was god awful last year, what an ~epic fail~ by Ken Holland

Calling him god awful is disingenuous and only detracts from the point you're attempting to make.

 

[joestevens29]

Laraque isn't not good at this insider thing.

- Hall captaincy
- Subban trade
- Hall went to rehab in 2016
- Brassard

Anything else?

At least this summer has shown who knows what is going on (Stauffer, Spector, Principe, Leavins) and who doesn't.

I've heard from one ex-nhler and one current nhler that this did happen, just not that year

 

[joestevens29]

Oh I don’t doubt we had an offer similar. And therein lies the problem. To overcome the disadvantages of our market you’d better put on the table something that’s better than just the same if you want your man. Maybe Holland didn’t want him bad enough, fine. We’ll see how the season plays out and Brassards play to determine if Holland should have upped his offer to 1.75M or even more.

You don't overpay to bring in a guy like Brassard. As it is 1.2mil is a bit rich for a guy sitting around at this time of year, especially given his performance last year

 

[ThePhoenixx]

Brassard was another Brodziak.

No loss.

 

[Ol' Jase]

NONE of us know exactly what goes on behind the scenes. We can only go on what we know. And we know that the Oilers were in on Brassard by all indications. So for me to say that we tried and failed is as much the same stretch as those on here to extol that “well it’s not a fail cause Brassard didn’t wanna be here”

You don’t know and I don’t know. But I do know that when a GM signs a good player he gets praised, and thus the opposite (not signing a player) should be viewed as he exact opposite. It’s just simple.

Oilers fans are just too used to this viewpoint that if a player doesn’t want to be here there’s absolutely nothing we could do. What IF we offered 2M to Brassard. It’s a ballsy move but if he ends up being a legit 3C that puts up 20 goals that become a huge WIN for Holland. So why shouldn’t the opposite of that be viewed as a loss.

This is bafflingly ridiculous.

“All indications” = Tweet from ex-Oiler famous for being wrong a lot.

Wow.

 

[Aceboogie]

We lost the sweepstakes of a soon to be 32 year old bargain bin player who was god awful last year, what an ~epic fail~ by Ken Holland

It is fine that we missed out on this roster player, because instead we were able to sign a better player

Oh wait...

We can only excuse missing out on bringing in NHL talent for so long

 

[belair]

Which is the underlying assumption of this whole discussion and 5 plus pages of Brassard talk. So sure, if George was LYING then I’ll take back all my words regarding Holland missing. But assuming we were in on Brassard like we all thought we were and we missed out, then yeh it’s a small loss for Holland. Simple as that.

Of course it's been the topic of discussion here. It's the middle of August. Brassard coming here had been discussed at lengths throughout the summer and then consensus saw him as a top six forward with likely minimal impact at 3C, the position that likely still needs to be addressed.

Considering this player brings diminishing 5v5 production, poor defensive awareness, terrible possession and absolutely no PK prowess, he's not exactly someone Holland should've been eyeing if that position was his focus.

And as a top six wing option, I honestly had a hard time fitting him in considering we have an abundance of forwards who play wing on the roster as is.

So, like I said... no major loss.

 

[PuckNut]

If it’s only for one year, I wonder if Marleau has been offered any contracts at this point? Veteran leadership as a 3C if cap room could be made.

 

[oobga]

Man some oiler fans on line are having a negative reaction to Brassard not signing.

Question I have were we even close? Almost right after George's tweet several media guys shot down the idea.

I think there might have been a single phone call to see if Brassard had any interest and he did not

Don't think it is a coincidence that he ends up signing right after that tweet erupted a bunch of speculation. Bet we were used in an intentional leak to try to get the Islanders to get a deal done ASAP instead of Brassard having to do a PTO or something less desirable

 

[TheNumber4]

You don't overpay to bring in a guy like Brassard. As it is 1.2mil is a bit rich for a guy sitting around at this time of year, especially given his performance last year

I’d argue that he’s worth 1.75M to a team like the Oilers. He’s a better bet than Brodziak and Reider last year, I’d have no problems paying him more. Especially considering there’s competition for his services. It’s the market doing its thing.

 

[TheNumber4]

This is bafflingly ridiculous.

“All indications” = Tweet from ex-Oiler famous for being wrong a lot.

Wow.

Sure okay. Laraque is lying. So this whole 7 plus pages of discussion of Brassard to Oilers on here and the trade boards is all ridiculous. Why don’t you call out all of it.