To extend the metaphor, I *would* blame him for escalating Vietnam
Look, I definitely don't mean to insult your intelligence. You can string 10 sentences into a paragraph. You construct arguments. That counts for quite a lot around here. Still, I don't think your explanation of this particular turn of events is all that satisfying.
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Did anyone actually look at the grand total of salaries we added in the offseason? The biggest additions of ours have always been in retaining our own.
We didn't even add salary to this team when we took on Vanek.
You could **** on Snow for not trading for Bernier or Schneider. It was a mistake not to do so as far as I'm concerned. Other than that, he's done a relatively good job at retaining our own players. He's done a relatively good job at drafting. He's done a relatively good job at building a team with a bargain payroll.
At the end of the day, this team is in a good position the second we're willing to spend to fill a couple holes in the lineup. Even if we only ever retain our own, we'll still be a good team when certain kids make it to this level. Good, not great like we should be for all of the losses we've had to endure. I can't stress that enough.
Our prospect pool is almost too good to fail on defense (and that's where we need the most help.) We have a handful of sizable forward and a couple that can potentially produce. It should be just enough. We'll be a good team; we've lost enough to earn that much. Without adding salary at any point though, we'll never be great.
When Wang lets Snow get an average payroll, then I'll judge Snow more harshly. That bolded part above should pretty much tell you what he's dealing with though.
Mitch
Succinct, logical, and sane. Fully agreed, and 'good on ya.'
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What? Talk about jumping to conclusions.
Thanks, being succinct isn't usually my strong point.
I was slightly off on the portion of Vanek's retained salary. (It'll probably even out after he's traded though. I threw that correction in there. I had thought it was $2.5 million retained for some reason. It's closer to $1.4 million. After Vanek is traded, the difference between his prorated $5 million and let's say a full year of Matt Moulson instead will be negligible.)
We're still second to last in payroll in the league. We've been dead last or second to last for how many years now?
Mitch
Did anyone actually look at the grand total of salaries we added in the offseason? The biggest additions of ours have always been in retaining our own.
We didn't even add salary to this team when we took on Vanek. Edit - See below.
You could **** on Snow for not trading for Bernier or Schneider. It was a mistake not to do so as far as I'm concerned. Other than that, he's done a relatively good job at retaining our own players. He's done a relatively good job at drafting. He's done a relatively good job at building a team with a bargain payroll.
At the end of the day, this team is in a good position the second we're willing to spend to fill a couple holes in the lineup. Even if we only ever retain our own, we'll still be a good team when certain kids make it to this level. Good, not great like we should be for all of the losses we've had to endure. I can't stress that enough.
Our prospect pool is almost too good to fail on defense (and that's where we need the most help.) We have a handful of sizable forwards and a couple that can potentially produce. It should be just enough. We'll be a good team; we've lost enough to earn that much. Without adding salary at any point though, we'll never be great.
When Wang lets Snow get an average payroll, then I'll judge Snow more harshly. That bolded part above should pretty much tell you what he's dealing with though.
Edit - Thought it was originally $2.5 million retained, but it was less. So we did add some, but after we trade him - well, you know the deal.
Mitch
Do you think Vanek would have signed if we offered him an extra year?
This is irrelevant...
Beside the fact that Snow realized he made a monstrous error when he thought we'd be a playoff contender and traded for Vanek, thinking he'd take a deal once we made the playoffs...
So what did he do? Offered him what he's already making?!?!?!
And on top of that... He leaked Vanek's rejection of the offer. Just so we all could see he "tried"...
We all know how good Snow is at keeping things within the organization. But this magically leaks. And we know it as our organization who leaked it since Arthur staple broke the story.
Your speculation that Wang is just cheap sucks. How about focusing on what a bad deal Snow made.
If we would have just kept Moulson... We could have GAINED a first round pick and who knows what else.
Now we have to sit here HOPING we break even... knowing in our guts that we wont.
Stop with the dumb 8th year stuff.
Keep in mind, that's likely something decided between whenever the trade was first negotiated and now. It's a little easier for me to see Wang saying "well.......offer him this much..." than Snow seeing one of the more dominant lines in the league on his roster and knowing the offer would have to be good, welching on offering the $60M+ it would take to sign him.
One can look at their separate track records and see consistency in one place and erratic decision making in the other.
