Quote:
Originally Posted by smoneil
DZ's sold short on these boards because he's been thrown into every proposal on the trade board for two years running. Last summer he was viewed as a throw in by half our fan base and this year he's somehow viewed as an extra piece that we don't really need.
I will say this--Erixon, at this point, isn't even breathing down Del Zotto's ankle, to say nothing of his neck. Erixon has a LONG way to go before he makes MDZ expendable. Also, I see a lot of people (not you BRFan, but more than a few others) running around saying that we should trade MDZ and replace him with Erixon, Shultz or "a top 4 PMD" like that's an easy thing to do. We've had PMD come up through the system who were highly regarded, only to flop in the NHL entirely (Pock, Sanguinetti) or fail to reach the lofty heights we had for them (Tyutin). We've signed (Redden, Kalinin, Gilroy) or traded for (Backman, Morris, Poti) one PMD after another. We haven't had a real one since Brian Leetch was traded. It's not so easy to just go out and "get" a top-4 PMD. We have one who is only 21 years old.
I'm not saying that Del Zotto shouldn't ever be considered in a move, but it just seems to me that too many people in our fanbase throw his name into trades without stopping to think about just what we have in him, and how difficult it is to get a player like that in the first place.
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Fair enough - and if he'd shown any aptitude to play the right side, I might be less open to the possibility. As it is, he's much better on the left and I don't see where he gets the ice time. So, that makes him expendable (again, only in the right deal), in my mind.
Furthermore, I think McD has massive untapped potential as a puck moving d-man, which we saw glimpses of in the playoffs. Can't wait to see him playing with full confidence on BOTH sides of the ice starting from game 1 (whenever that may be) next year...