Thanks for posting that... it was a fun listen.
I suppose my position is somewhere in the middle, as I don't want to sign Bolland, but I was also happy to get rid of Grabo.
It's kind of an unfair comparison because Bolland looked like he was going to fit well into this team and he looked very good when he was playing for us. However I'm skeptical that he will ever return to where he was. Even if he heals 100%, I still think that missing out on all that time puts you a step back, espeically as you get older. And it was just unlucky that he got injured.
So in other words, comparing how Bolland played pre-injury to how Grabo plays now is not really a useful comparison because there's a good chance that Bolland will never be as good as he was (and it's not like he was ever a superstar either). So the player who scored the goal to win the cup might be gone and all that's left is a guy who never fully recovered from an injury and just fades out over the next few years. Of course, there's also a good chance he makes a full recovery and plays just like he did at the start of last sesaon.
The point is, it's a gamble... and that has to be considered when signing a big contract like that... and if you look at the risk/reward, it's not the right move for the leafs to sign him to that huge contract.
Simmons acted as if there was no other possible solution. I'm fine with Bozak, Kadri and Holland as our top 3 centers. If we can get another center that's even better and we can move Kadri or Holland somewhere else in the lineup (either one of them on the wing or use Holland as our 4th line center).
So there are a lot of other options for the Leafs at center other than Bolland, and the other options look a lot better.
Obviously most of Simmons's arguments didn't make a lot of sense. The blogger at least made sense. Simmon's seemed to suggest that he knew it was a bad contract but that the Leafs should do it anyways for some reason.
But I don't really agree with the love-fest for Grabo. In hindsight, he probably would have been useful this year, but that's only because we lost Bolland. I would have rathered a healthy Bolland this year vs. a healthy Grabo this year. So in one way, you could agrue that if we still had Grabo, it might have made the difference, but if we had a healthy Bolland, that would have made the difference too. And if we can only have 1 of them (since we were right up against the cap), I would have taken Bolland given that they have an equal chance of getting a fluke injury. If anything Grabo probably has a better chance of getting injured because he just skates around with the puck until someone knocks him over. And he's a champ for getting up every time, but one day, someone might really get him good.
Simmons seemed to take offense because he couldn't really accept the implications if the blogger was right (which in general, he is). It implies that some of these teams are being managed very poorly which I think is true. The blogger makes a good point that there are GMs who make big errors by signing this huge contracts when there are cheaper options available.
Why would we want to sign a huge long term contract for big money when there are guys who will take a short term contract at a cheap price who might be just as good, if not better?
I feel like if you sign one of these big contracts... you better know what you're getting... and we have no idea what we're getting with Bolland.