We need to dispense with this idea that acquiring Meszaros made moving Gagne necessary. Clearly they had decided to move Gagne already, before they acquired Mesz and signed Zherdev. It was just a matter of finding the right place for Gagne.
I agree that they could have just signed O'Donnell to play with Oskars, but they wanted to really improve the D without significantly hurting the offense - which they did by signing Zherdev.
I'd still love to see a better goalie signed, but I'm resigning myself to the fact they might not....
I'm not saying the Meszaros trade forced Gagne out because they were already planning on trading Gagne. I'm saying that if they traded Gagne first, the return would of been more because the whole NHL wouldn't of known that the Flyers are desperate for cap space again.
My impressions of Meszaros is that he's a player who had his hype and status skyrocket because of a great 1st season. He was playing on a stacked Senators team and was the beneficiary of a lot of scoring and depth.
When pieces of the team needed to be carted off because of the salary cap, expectations of him grew and he never really managed to make an impact on the 2nd pairing. He, along with Redden was consistently our worst pairing and they constantly made boneheaded mistakes that left us fuming.
He's been a player who typically holds so much promise, but at the end of the day leaves you wanting more. Tampa sort of bought into his image the same way New York went with Redden and he's probably paid double of what he should be making. He's still young though so he may turn it around... unlike Redden.
I'm not saying the Meszaros trade forced Gagne out because they were already planning on trading Gagne. I'm saying that if they traded Gagne first, the return would of been more because the whole NHL wouldn't of known that the Flyers are desperate for cap space again.
How many teams would Gagne agree to go to. Sending him to a team he wanted to play for and taking a crappy return seems more like a thank you to Gagne move then a move that was forced.
didnt like it then and I still dont like it. There was no need to give up an asset to get a 4 million dollar middle pairing defenseman. yes no matter what some people may think on this board, draft picks are valuable. But hey who needs draft picks when you have studs like Pither and Testwuide in your system right?
Last edited by GoneFullHolmgren: 07-23-2010 at 11:42 AM.
Of course he benefitted from playing with Pronger, Carle is an offensive minded defenseman, he needs someone to anchor him when he pinches. In '08-'09 Carle had to alter his game dramatically because Coburn was not that backstop that he needed.
Btw, how did playing with an all star defenseman work out for Coburn the last few seasons? If I recall correctly, he even made Timonen look bad, that is impressive. He actually didn't start playing semi-competent until he was demoted to the 3rd line and didn't have to match up against talented lines, which is right where he will be this upcoming season.
Finally, someone who has nailed it on the head with regards to Coburn. So far in Coburn's career, he's been nothing more than a better skating version of Randy Jones.
How many teams would Gagne agree to go to. Sending him to a team he wanted to play for and taking a crappy return seems more like a thank you to Gagne move then a move that was forced.
It doesn't matter what team he goes to, if the flyers are in trouble with the cap and they need to send a player away, they are not going to get as much in return as if they weren't desperate for cap room.
The cap hit was the start of a chain reaction that meant Gagne was traded. To me this means that JVR will need to have a breakout season to replace the scoring lost with Simon gone. May be a big ask. Yes Zherdev will probably get around 20 goals but the guy defends like the French Army.
I get the point was to sure up the 3rd D pairing which was awful during the playoffs and with that it mind, it does, even though Meszaros has pretty much been a minus player ever since leaving Ottawa & Chara. He played with Walker, another big man last year, and still was a -8 (I think).
Also by later acquiring O'Donnell & Walker, aren't we stifling the prospects we've got on D? Personally I think that we have a half decent prospect pool on D what with Bartulis, Marshall & Lehtivuori.
I still believe we could have signed any of the following to lesser valued contracts and our 3rd D pairing would have been improved and we could have stayed under the cap.
Aaron Ward, Shaone Morrisonn, Denis Grebeshkov, Paul Mara, Andy Sutton, Jay McKee & Brian Pothier.
Yes some may be the wrong side of 35, but they could bring a guy like Bartulis along and probably for less than 4m a year.
Pronger is old, Timo is old. Anyone considered the possibility that youngsters Mesz, Coburn, and Carle are all there to support the performance of the two oldsters, which will steadily decline from now on out? Five hi paid Dmen is a bad idea ordianrily, but what about the context? Context being that Philly's two best D are both alarmingly old?
And also to eventually replace those two when they get way too old?
Last 6 months Coburn? Haha. He had about 3 weeks of the regular season where he played competent and then round 3 he played well and 4 he was pretty good.
Carle outplayed both Coburn and Meszaros by a wide margin last year... Gagne scored the game 4 OT winner against Bos, what about the sick pass that allowed him to basically deflect it effortlessly into the net? How about game 5 when Carle tied a franchise record for assists in a game? Game 3 against Chi when he fed Giroux for the overtime game winner? Game 82 when he was the only person able to put the puck past the league's best goalie who was playing most likely the best game of his career?
Carle stepped it up all year and even more so in big spots, people jerk off Coburn for his play in the Finals, that -8 sure does get me hard, too, guys.
The rankings from '09-'10 goes like this:
Carle>>Meszaros>Coburn
The rankings for their careers goes like this:
Meszaros>Carle>>Coburn
The rankings of their natural talent goes like this:
Coburn>>Meszaros>Carle
Talent gets you **** all in this world except on this board of prospect huggers that think everyone will fulfill their potential to its fullest, news flash, 4 seasons into Coburn's career and he is still a ****ing moron.
