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A Mulligan! The One Trade You Would Undo


JGC21

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3 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

Completely agree. But I still think trades are categorically distinct from drafts, and also that the Habs probably have a higher number of disastrous major trades than most clubs.

 

It depends on the era... the 60s and 70s Habs under pollock ripped off the league left and right. 

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30 minutes ago, JGC21 said:

Mike Ribiero for Janne Niinimaa?

 

Yow. Another horrible trade, especially from a team with a chronic shortage of C. People will jump in and say he was a toxic punk, and I'm sure he was, but I'm also sure the Habs could have used a 70-80 point C for those years. And Niinimaa was human garbage.

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12 hours ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

Yow. Another horrible trade, especially from a team with a chronic shortage of C. People will jump in and say he was a toxic punk, and I'm sure he was, but I'm also sure the Habs could have used a 70-80 point C for those years. And Niinimaa was human garbage.

 

Or more importantly, you play the market instead of just kneejerking to your old team. It was over a year later until a centre at the level or better than Ribeiro was traded if I'm correct (Richards to Dallas). The market would have moved for him.

 

06-07 was so frustrating. Drafting Fischer, that Ribeiro trade, the team struggling, the team then sitting on the fence on whether to sell or not, and only trading Rivet. Had we traded Souray and Ryder, we would have walked away with another two first round picks and probably two good prospects as well. 

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8 minutes ago, Machine of Loving Grace said:

 

Or more importantly, you play the market instead of just kneejerking to your old team. It was over a year later until a centre at the level or better than Ribeiro was traded if I'm correct (Richards to Dallas). The market would have moved for him.

 

06-07 was so frustrating. Drafting Fischer, that Ribeiro trade, the team struggling, the team then sitting on the fence on whether to sell or not, and only trading Rivet. Had we traded Souray and Ryder, we would have walked away with another two first round picks and probably two good prospects as well. 

 

Ryder wasn't an unrestricted free agent.  There was almost no talk of moving ryder in 2007.  Souray I agree with. 

 

But Ryder is revisionist history.  It didn't even become a consideration til a year later, the team was doing well but he was struggling and he was supposed to be part of the Hossa deal. 

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7 minutes ago, Commandant said:

 

Ryder wasn't an unrestricted free agent.  There was almost no talk of moving ryder in 2007.  Souray I agree with. 

 

But Ryder is revisionist history.  It didn't even become a consideration til a year later, the team was doing well but he was struggling and he was supposed to be part of the Hossa deal. 

 

Ryder should have been moved. Don't care if it wasn't part of the conversation. It's the same issue we're having today. And it's completely possible this organization repeats history and shoots for a wildcard spot and decides to hold onto Pacioretty before he walks and we lose him for nothing, like we did with Souray.

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Souray absolutely should have been traded. Most of Gainey's mistakes I could at least see the rationale behind, but in that case it was simply negligence. That team had zero chance of doing any damage even if it did manage to squeak into the playoffs, and Souray was an absolute monster at that juncture who could have commanded a significant return. Bad, bad, bad GMing right there.

 

I tend to disagree, though, with Machine's argument (which I believe you've also made regarding Patches) that you trade players when their value is highest, period. Team don't just go around trading away important players because their value is high; if you keep doing that, you will never win anything, because you'll constantly be shipping out your best players at their peak. I may be missing something here, but philosophically this just doesn't seem to make sense to me.

 

 

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2 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

Souray absolutely should have been traded. Most of Gainey's mistakes I could at least see the rationale behind, but in that case it was simply negligence. That team had zero chance of doing any damage even if it did manage to squeak into the playoffs, and Souray was an absolute monster at that juncture who could have commanded a significant return. Bad, bad, bad GMing right there.

 

I tend to disagree, though, with Machine's argument (which I believe you've also made regarding Patches) that you trade players when their value is highest, period. Team don't just go around trading away important players because their value is high; if you keep doing that, you will never win anything, because you'll constantly be shipping out your best players at their peak. I may be missing something here, but philosophically this just doesn't seem to make sense to me.

 

 

 

Its also hard to determine "peak" without hindsight. 

 

Is a guy at his peak, or is he on an upward swing and still getting better. 

 

Thats easy to do in hindsight, hard to do in the moment. 

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4 hours ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

Souray absolutely should have been traded. Most of Gainey's mistakes I could at least see the rationale behind, but in that case it was simply negligence. That team had zero chance of doing any damage even if it did manage to squeak into the playoffs, and Souray was an absolute monster at that juncture who could have commanded a significant return. Bad, bad, bad GMing right there.

 

I tend to disagree, though, with Machine's argument (which I believe you've also made regarding Patches) that you trade players when their value is highest, period. Team don't just go around trading away important players because their value is high; if you keep doing that, you will never win anything, because you'll constantly be shipping out your best players at their peak. I may be missing something here, but philosophically this just doesn't seem to make sense to me.

 

 

 

That evaluation is all done in context, are you a contender with 1, maybe 2 more pieces? If you are, you hold on to your best players and try to acquire the piece. If you are a fringe playoff team who is more likely to miss the playoffs by a few points than actually squeak in, then why keep losing with your best players until they are worthless? What if the make up of your team is just wrong, and you need to re-tool, your best player also happens to be in a position you are well stocked in, move him for a position you are in much more need of to potential take a big step forward.

 

The context you used Souray in, is bang on, we were going nowhere near a cup final with that team, a decision could have been made to ship him out for lots of assets that could have helped us come back stronger a few years later. There is a context for Pacioretty being moved, he is a winger, we are very likely about to draft an elite one in the making, and still have Galchenyuk able to play the Left side. We lack a top C and a top pair LD because the make up of our team is wrong , Patches could be used to re-tool that make up. Allowing us to acquire a quality roster player in one of those positions or some very good prospects in those positions, which would likely help us take a big step going forward. Where your team figures in its transitional arc is what determines when and who of your high value players you should be shipping out. Make no mistake, there is a good time to trade players while they are at their most valuable, and a bad time to trade them while they are at their most valuable, the outlook of your current team is and always should be the deciding factor.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Link67 said:

 

That evaluation is all done in context, are you a contender with 1, maybe 2 more pieces? If you are, you hold on to your best players and try to acquire the piece. If you are a fringe playoff team who is more likely to miss the playoffs by a few points than actually squeak in, then why keep losing with your best players until they are worthless? What if the make up of your team is just wrong, and you need to re-tool, your best player also happens to be in a position you are well stocked in, move him for a position you are in much more need of to potential take a big step forward.

 

The context you used Souray in, is bang on, we were going nowhere near a cup final with that team, a decision could have been made to ship him out for lots of assets that could have helped us come back stronger a few years later. There is a context for Pacioretty being moved, he is a winger, we are very likely about to draft an elite one in the making, and still have Galchenyuk able to play the Left side. We lack a top C and a top pair LD because the make up of our team is wrong , Patches could be used to re-tool that make up. Allowing us to acquire a quality roster player in one of those positions or some very good prospects in those positions, which would likely help us take a big step going forward. Where your team figures in its transitional arc is what determines when and who of your high value players you should be shipping out. Make no mistake, there is a good time to trade players while they are at their most valuable, and a bad time to trade them while they are at their most valuable, the outlook of your current team is and always should be the deciding factor.

 

 

I do not remember the specifics with Souray in terms of where contract negotiations could have gone with him and where the team was headed in 07 and beyond but the comparisons are quite different. 

 

Max Pacioretty has been quite a consistent player throughout his career whereas Sheldon Souray had one or two monstrous seasons with the rest being injury prone and not as exciting.

 

It really all comes down to what people think Pacioretty has left in the tank. I sincerely believe that he has many years left of high level play and that this season was in aberration. It may happen once more in the next 5 years is my belief.

 

It’s also nice to say that players like Galchenyuk can magically slide into Pacioretty’s position but what’s clear with this coaching staff is that Pacioretty has a much more defined role in the team than Galchenyuk, who has made appearances on the 4th line.

 

Galchenyuk is arguably my favorite player on the Habs and I vehemently disagree with him having been played on the 4th line but what happens when Pacioretty is traded for that future center, and Julien feels as though Galchenyuk needs one of those training sessions on the 4th line again. 

 

The exact types of players our team needs are players like Pacioretty, Gallagher, Danault (and I don’t love him). Players with defined roles. Players like Drouin and Galchenyuk are being thrown all over the place and never know where they stand. I used to think Galchenyuk’s versatility was a great thing until I saw the manner in which our coaching staff handled it.

 

I personally would have had Galchenyuk play at center and then there you go, we no longer need to trade our best player to fill a need.

 

Pacioretty-Galchenyuk-Drouin

Scherbak-Stastny-Gallagher

 

It’s not too complicated is it? Although now I’m the one telling the coaching staff how to operate things.

 

I agree that we then need to solve the LD issue but don’t agree that it has to be at the cost of Pacioretty.

 

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16 hours ago, xXx..CK..xXx said:

 

I personally would have had Galchenyuk play at center and then there you go, we no longer need to trade our best player to fill a need.

 

Pacioretty-Galchenyuk-Drouin

Scherbak-Stastny-Gallagher

 

It’s not too complicated is it? Although now I’m the one telling the coaching staff how to operate things.

 

I agree that we then need to solve the LD issue but don’t agree that it has to be at the cost of Pacioretty.

 

 

Galy ain't playing centre, though. So while the above configuration seems serviceable in the short term - a kind of mid-range FW roster, saddled with two contracts (Patches and Stastny) that are likely to be crippling on the back end - it's not conceivable for this management group.

 

I don't agree that MaxPac as "many years left in the tank" as an elite scorer. More likely he has a couple, followed by decline. I've noted many times that I did not see the extra burst of speed to the outside from him last season. That's a bit of a red flag to my mind - not that his game will collapse, just that his peak effectiveness is probably at its tipping point. A player like that has good value to a contending team, just as Rick Nash has brought some value to his teams. A team like ours, which is miles from contention, should be trying to move him for a younger core asset who can make an impact 3-4 years from now, when - hopefully - contention becomes realistic.

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9 minutes ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

Galy ain't playing centre, though. So while the above configuration seems serviceable in the short term - a kind of mid-range FW roster, saddled with two contracts (Patches and Stastny) that are likely to be crippling on the back end - it's not conceivable for this management group.

 

I don't agree that MaxPac as "many years left in the tank" as an elite scorer. More likely he has a couple, followed by decline. I've noted many times that I did not see the extra burst of speed to the outside from him last season. That's a bit of a red flag to my mind - not that his game will collapse, just that his peak effectiveness is probably at its tipping point. A player like that has good value to a contending team, just as Rick Nash has brought some value to his teams. A team like ours, which is miles from contention, should be trying to move him for a younger core asset who can make an impact 3-4 years from now, when - hopefully - contention becomes realistic.

Agree with what you’re saying - decline of speed doesn’t bode well for a guy not known to go to the dirty areas.  Having said that, I don’t know if not having a guy at the backend feeding him the long outlet pass that he can use to start a fast rush may have been a factor.  Losing Subban and Markov  in successive years probably impacted him more than any other forward.

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1 hour ago, hab29RETIRED said:

Agree with what you’re saying - decline of speed doesn’t bode well for a guy not known to go to the dirty areas.  Having said that, I don’t know if not having a guy at the backend feeding him the long outlet pass that he can use to start a fast rush may have been a factor.  Losing Subban and Markov  in successive years probably impacted him more than any other forward.

 

He scored 35 goals the season after Subban was traded, compared to the 30 he got the last season Subban was here. Losing Markov hurts though 

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1 hour ago, illWill said:

 

He scored 35 goals the season after Subban was traded, compared to the 30 he got the last season Subban was here. Losing Markov hurts though 

He scored 37 and 39 having both of them feeding him for the long breakaway pass.  How far back to you want to go??  Bottom line is there is no one on the backend now that can feed him like that anymore.

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1 hour ago, hab29RETIRED said:

He scored 37 and 39 having both of them feeding him for the long breakaway pass.  How far back to you want to go??  Bottom line is there is no one on the backend now that can feed him like that anymore.

Markov is a rare player in that respect in terms of his vision and passing skills so we’re going to have to get over that hope for Pacioretty. 

 

I still see see him (Pacioretty) as being able to pot goals in the offensive zome for years to come. He just does need a setup man. 

 

There’s no denying that NHL players peak in their early to mid twenties and then begin to decline around 30 but I still view it as a negative outlook to assume he only has two years left in him. There are plenty of quality players like Ovechkin, Pavelski, Bergeron, Wheeler, Staal, who are still having an impact and still have more years in them. Some of them, if not most of them have already been considered “over the hill”. The difference between 29 and 31 is much less than the difference between 30 and 35. If anything, Pacioretty has always healed quicker than most and so I see no reason not to be a little more optimistic about his lifespan than your average NHLer. 

 

This is one where only time will tell. If Pacioretty can still put up 50-60 points in 5 years, I believe he will have been worth 7-8 million even if the final couple of years are a “little tough”. 

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2 hours ago, illWill said:

He scored 35 goals the season after Subban was traded, compared to the 30 he got the last season Subban was here. Losing Markov hurts though 

 

In 15-16, PK Subban went down on a season ending injury on March 10th. He led the team in scoring, and Pacioretty had 24 goals. So most of those goals were with Subban. He only scored six more without him.

 

16-17, Radulov played a major role in filling the Subban role for Pacioretty. It was actually kind of more the Erik Cole role for him. Either way, he's a big part of the 35 goals Pacioretty scored that season. That's not to take away from Pacioretty's own ability, it's just recognizing he's better with someone either feeding him or creating room for him. He had none of that in 17-18, and unless Bergevin lands some major fishes, he won't in 18-19.

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8 minutes ago, Machine of Loving Grace said:

 

In 15-16, PK Subban went down on a season ending injury on March 10th. He led the team in scoring, and Pacioretty had 24 goals. So most of those goals were with Subban. He only scored six more without him.

 

16-17, Radulov played a major role in filling the Subban role for Pacioretty. It was actually kind of more the Erik Cole role for him. Either way, he's a big part of the 35 goals Pacioretty scored that season. That's not to take away from Pacioretty's own ability, it's just recognizing he's better with someone either feeding him or creating room for him. He had none of that in 17-18, and unless Bergevin lands some major fishes, he won't in 18-19.

 

So Subban missed 14 games at the end of that season, which Pacioretty scored 6 more during that span. So if I do the math, 6 goals in 14 games without Subban is .43 goals per game while his previous 24 goals in 68 games with Subban equates to .35 goals per game. I don't think you proved your point very well. 

 

And isn't everyone better with someone feeding them and creating room for them? 

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On 24/05/2018 at 8:09 AM, Machine of Loving Grace said:

 

Ryder should have been moved. Don't care if it wasn't part of the conversation. It's the same issue we're having today. And it's completely possible this organization repeats history and shoots for a wildcard spot and decides to hold onto Pacioretty before he walks and we lose him for nothing, like we did with Souray.

 

In terms of Gainey's mistakes, he also let Mark Streit walk, and Streit went on to be a legitimate top-pairing defender for years thereafter. I just recalled that the other day. Now maybe we were in a cap crunch and had no choice, I don't recall. But when you think about it, Gainey - much as I love the guy - had an alarming number of howlers. 

 

-throwing away Souray as a UFA instead of getting big value back

-letting a top-pairing d-man walk for free in Streit

-trading McDonagh, another top-pairing guy, for the doomed Gomez

-giving away a legitimate #1A C in Ribeiro

 

We could add to the list, but the four cases above involve major assets: top-pairing defenders, a highly productive C. The only thing we got back for any of the four was Scott Gomez. That is pretty appalling.

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1 hour ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

In terms of Gainey's mistakes, he also let Mark Streit walk, and Streit went on to be a legitimate top-pairing defender for years thereafter. I just recalled that the other day. Now maybe we were in a cap crunch and had no choice, I don't recall. But when you think about it, Gainey - much as I love the guy - had an alarming number of howlers. 

 

-throwing away Souray as a UFA instead of getting big value back

-letting a top-pairing d-man walk for free in Streit

-trading McDonagh, another top-pairing guy, for the doomed Gomez

-giving away a legitimate #1A C in Ribeiro

 

We could add to the list, but the four cases above involve major assets: top-pairing defenders, a highly productive C. The only thing we got back for any of the four was Scott Gomez. That is pretty appalling.

I’m surprised Mcdonagh for Gomez hasn’t been mentioned more in this thread. That one truly needed a mulligan; and I liked Gomez throughout his career.

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I’ll also add that at the time, I defended the Gomez trade to an extent because to this day I do believe that it had somewhat of an impact in terms of acquiring Gionta and Cammalleri. In my relatively young mind, that 2010 playoff run was one of my favorite memories. 

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14 minutes ago, xXx..CK..xXx said:

I’ll also add that at the time, I defended the Gomez trade to an extent because to this day I do believe that it had somewhat of an impact in terms of acquiring Gionta and Cammalleri. In my relatively young mind, that 2010 playoff run was one of my favorite memories. 

 

The Gomez trade should not have been *as bad* as it turned out to be. Gomez had reliably produced as an elite or near-elite playmaker for years. And he did a good job for one season with us. His game collapsed literally overnight at age 30. You'd think we could have gotten three or four effective years out of him at least. It was just bad luck that he lost his game at an unusually young age for a near-elite player.

 

That said, even as a big Gomez fan (I always enjoyed his fast, dashing, creative game) I qualified my enthusiasm with the claim that if McD became a top-pairing guy, it would be a bad trade. Unfortunately for us, not only did hecome a top-pairind guy, but Gomez disintegrated. Worst case scenario.

 

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I would honestly still do the Gomez trade but make just one adjustment.

 

To Montreal

Scott Gomez

Michael Busto

Tom Pyatt

 

To New York

Chris Higgins

Pavel Valentenko

Doug Janik

David Fischer

 

Fischer's rights were up that summer but he didn't sign with Montreal. He might have signed with New York. He didn't bottom out completely as a prospect until the year after.

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1 hour ago, The Chicoutimi Cucumber said:

 

In terms of Gainey's mistakes, he also let Mark Streit walk, and Streit went on to be a legitimate top-pairing defender for years thereafter. I just recalled that the other day. Now maybe we were in a cap crunch and had no choice, I don't recall. But when you think about it, Gainey - much as I love the guy - had an alarming number of howlers. 

 

-throwing away Souray as a UFA instead of getting big value back

-letting a top-pairing d-man walk for free in Streit

-trading McDonagh, another top-pairing guy, for the doomed Gomez

-giving away a legitimate #1A C in Ribeiro

 

We could add to the list, but the four cases above involve major assets: top-pairing defenders, a highly productive C. The only thing we got back for any of the four was Scott Gomez. That is pretty appalling.

 

Streit and Ryder were allowed to walk as it was felt that Lang and Tanguay were upgrades and they needed the cap space. 

 

Remember that Streit and Ryder were UFA in 2008.  This was a year the Habs finished first in the conference, and the belief was that the club was a legit cup contender.  They were trying to add Hossa at the deadline. 

 

I see keeping them as far less of an issue, and far less egregious than the Souray situation on a non-playoff team in 2007

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