Monctonscout
Monctonscout
- Jan 26, 2008
- 34,935
- 1
I think that we're not doing our younger players any favours going about things the way we have. Signing Briere hurts their development (he steals easy minutes they should be getting like DD does) and doesn't provide any kind of protection up front. On the backend, we're leaving Price almost totally exposed in front of the net. That's not good for our other backend guys or Price himself.
By all means, don't trade away the future. If we think Beaulieu's the real deal... hang onto him. But DON'T make the size issue worse and at the very least get a REAL number 4 shutdown guy.
How could we have done this? We had cap space to spare while others were struggling with it. We're pretty stacked prospect wise. Some of those prospects we're probably not going to move up but have some talent. We have the 2014 draft picks that we can trade with, we have an abundance of smaller forwards with some skill that we could move... there's things we can do here.
So what would I have done? I would've signed Morrow as a stopgap for Maccaron. I would've gone out and gone after a guy like Coburn who was apparently available and would've suited us perfectly (leveraging our cap space to our advantage) and I would've at least looked into Bobby Ryan (which we may have done anyway.)
So yeah, one FA (Morrow) and a trade for a good shutdown guy. That's what we needed (and still need.)
Thing is though.... EVERYONE knows we need this. There's nothing special here about what I'm saying. The whole league knows this and our own GM knows it. That's why what we did was such a mystery. Now we have to pray that Murray is good enough and Tinordi's ready. We cheaped out where we needed help and paid a premium for an area where we already had an overabundance. That's not the way to build winners. And yes, I think we could've actually done something this postseason with a Coburn and a Morrow in our lineup. Cup favourites? No. But I'd be valuing our chances a whole lot higher.
If anything Briere helps the kids development by providing them time to develop instead of having them rushed into a role they are not ready for.
How is Price totally exposed? The Habs are one of the better puck posession teams, that in itself protects him by not having to face shots when we have the puck. If anything it's Price that needs to step up and protect them d-men so they know they can trust him and don't have to try and block every shot.
Who are the "#4 shutdown guys" available that would not have cost a top prospect? The best #4 guy we can get is a healthy Emelin. If you think Phillie would give us Coburn for a 4th rounder or another cheap option you're dreaming in colour.
Also MB is on record as saying he is building towards a top team, I don't see the point of trading 2-3 assets for an established d-man right now, a guy that will block guys like Tinordi, Pateryn and Ellis. Murray is there as a temporary option to help out on the 3rd pair and on PK.