Curious Hair wrote:
Hockey Gay wrote:
Random rant.
Eventhough he declined last season (I blame mainly injuries and the cheating rumors), Sharp was a great 3rd line player in the playoffs last year and was pretty much the perfect modern day hockey player in his prime here. He could literally do everything at a top level. He had no real weaknesses. When we look back at this era he should be revered as much as Toews, Kane and Keith.
Saad, although not quite as good as prime Sharp, was a beast who dominated board battles to keep puck possession and did everything good too. Without Saad, Toews looks like a #2 center.
How many times did we watch those two just school the opposition with superior hockey iq, speed and skill while they were here? You're not replacing those two phenomenal players and their will to win with what we tried to. This last off season was alot tougher for me to accept than the 2010 purge. I wanted to watch those guys play their entire careers here.
Excellent point. Anisimov has brought a lot to the table, and I don't think Panarin would have had the year he had without him, but Saad was, is, and will be the superior player. What a terrible turn of events to have only gotten three years of him. I know there wasn't another choice, but the team signed its death certificate with the Toews contract. You just can't build around a contract like that when you're paying for past performance. If not that contract, definitely the new Seabrook one.
You keep bringing up Toews' contract but you fail to realize the reason why he commanded that salary: #1 Center and Captain of a team that was coming off its 2nd Stanley Cup. The eradication of Hossa's skills, plus a lack of a left wing, has led to a statistical drop in Toews' offensive numbers. A team that consistently finds and develops talent is eventually going to have make difficult decisions, especially in a league where the salary cap is not increasing like the NBA and NFL. I'll take the 3 Cups and having to deal with cap issues over having a cheap owner who jettisoned star players simply because he was more worried about his bottom line than winning.
I will agree on the Seabrook contract, plus the way the NHL is punishing teams for giving contracts like Hossa's to players is a bunch of bullshit. There has to be a softening of the cap to reward teams for developing their own talent; if certain teams can't survive because they hire incompetent individuals, then relocate or dissolve them.