A historical refresher:
- Gainey tried to acquire Mats Sundin, and failed twice. First he failed to acquire him at the 2008 trade deadline for I forget which package, then he traded Grabovski for the negotiating rights to Sundin and Sundin chose to go to Vancouver.
- Gainey tried to acquire Vincent Lecavalier. He offered a package at the time of Plekanec, Higgins, Gorges, Subban and three 1st rounders, I think the 1st round picks were 2009, 2011, and 2013. The Lightning would have ended up with Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Nathan MacKinnon.
- In the 2009 NHL entry draft, Gainey went drunk on drafting centres. An unprecedented five of the eight draft picks were centres, including Louis Leblanc in the 1st round, Joonas Nattinen in the 3rd round, Gabriel Dumont in the 5th round, Dustin Walsh in the 6th round, and Mike Cichy in the 7th round, all busts.
- In the summer of 2009, Gainey went drunk acquiring "project players" who could maybe one day become NHL centres. He got Detroit castoff Mikael Johansson and undrafted centre Andreas Engvist.
So it makes sense that Gainey would overpay for Scott Gomez. He was in an emotionally psychotic zone where he was compelled to do whatever it takes to acquire a centre.
Once Pierre Gauthier took over, things calmed down mostly. The only major centre acquisitions was that of Lars Eller.