Lil Sebastian Cossa
Opinions are share are my own personal opinions.
- Jul 6, 2012
- 11,436
- 7,446
If he is not going to get a top 4 D or high draft pick then why bother trading him? No point trading him for a 3rd round pick because the chances of that player being a better NHLer are slim. Also, his 4th round pick wasn't necessarily his "stuff that got him traded". He didn't light it up his draft year (a stacked Knights team) and with a returning team, he asked for a team closer to a team near his Toronto home.
I am not going to go in length about how you just said that Abdelkader and Helm stat's are comparable, unless your counting penalty minutes, then yes Abby has better stats! Not even remotely similar at the age AA is.
Even though you don't see him bouncing back, I do not see a reason to not have him on the opening roster next year unless he publicly asks for a trade, because with the roster we have back next year we might be celebrating goals rather then wins next year....
Because if I don't think he'll improve from where he sits now (and unless he has an hitherto unforeseen change in his approach, I don't), what do I gain by holding on to him?
And again, I don't care about what age they were at when they did it. The issue is... Helm and Abdelkader (and others on the roster, they're just among the guys with the worst reps for play) in the middle of their contracts where they are essentially deadweight that we couldn't move for half of a puck and are decried as being worthless are within 5 points of him. Helm is comparatively less scoring time per game.
A young guy won't just improve because he's a young guy and he gets older. AA in three years does the same exact things he's always done. He has the same mental lapses and lack of interest in backchecking that he's always had.
It's like if you had two students both getting C grades. One you can see is putting in extra hours studying, asking questions, and you can see that they really want to get better at the things you're telling them. The other aces a mid-term, but hand in assignments late during the year and ****s off during lectures and continues doing exactly that for the majority of the time.
Which one would you have more faith in getting better? If I saw any consistent game-in, game-out improvement in what he does, I'd be willing to pay attention to keeping him around and nurturing him. If he's going to end up as the same 35-40 point winger who plays no defense and coasts around... what the hell is the point? I'll get excited when he gets a breakaway like he can do something with it... but if you're actually honest with yourself and you want the Wings to really become a good team again, you move on from AA and let another team try to coax the points out of him and deal with the fallout if/when the leopard doesn't change his spots.