Until Rundblad makes it to the NHL all the Rundblad supporters will never know. Turris has a head start on him playing a regular shift as the Sens 2nd line centre now & doing well, not great but well enough. Rundblad still has to prove himself at the NHL level & that could take yrs since it's much harder to develop a defenceman than a forward so until then Ottawa is ahead on the trade. Otherwise all Rundblad supporters can say is that he has potential & we have seen many guys with potential never make it. Filatov had the most potential I have ever seen on these boards & he isn't even in HFs Top 50 Prospects anymore. How quickly they fall.
Rundblad will figure it out and be a top 15 Dman in four years.
Turris will train, do a full Camp and start next season fresh.
While I am not convinced he is the 2C we need, he's the best we've got (Regin?) right now and I think he will compete next season for the Top 6. he certainly has the talent and the "sense". Quite responsible actually. Just needs a LW (Silfverberg, Hoffman) who can read of him. He's the disher i think on his line.
We absolutely won the trade. I never bought into the Rundblad hype machine, and still maintain he won't be the amazing defensman everybody thought he would be. He'll be a top4 d-man, but that's it. Turris will be a solid 1b center.
Interesting, thanks for the responses guys. Obviously to get a definitive answer we are still going to have to wait a while.
No doubt we've been looking for a #2C for...well forever, but I'm just not convinced we couldn't have gotten a better player in exchange for Rundblad and a 2nd.
I see Turris as a consistent 50 point guy (respectable for a #2C) with the odd year at 55, and maybe a year at 60 in his best performance. It's certainly a position we needed to address, but I wonder if Zibanejad can not address this issue or if he really is going to continue on the wing.
Furthermore, I see Hodgson getting traded for Kassian and it kind of hurts. I think Hodgson has a ton more potential than Turris and I feel (maybe wrongfully so) that Rundblad + 2nd would have been almost as attractive a package to Vancouver as Kassian was (heck, Rundblad+Smith would have been perfect for them).
I just don't find Turris impressive enough to give up a young kid like Rundblad for. I'm the first to admit he was an absolutely devestating trainwreck in his season with the Senators this year but that's to be expected from a young guy who played his entire life in Sweden and depended upon time and space (ie. the larger ice surface) to really make people's jaws drop.
I completely agree that dealing Rundblad made a lot of sense, especially since Cowen was playing like a machine-tank at the time and we had Karlsson showing us what he's got in store for the NHL in the future.
In short: I think it made sense to deal Rundblad, I agree that a 2nd round pick isn't the end of the world, and I agree that we needed a #2C to better our roster.
I'm just not confident the value we gave up in exchange for that #2C is justified by Turris' skill level.
Turris is a 50pt guy with potential for 65 on a career year (like a Stephen Weiss I guess)
Rundblad is a 35-40pt guy with potential for 50 on a career year (like a Brent Burns I guess)
That's the way I see it.
And I would NOT trade away Burns and a 2nd, for Weiss... no one would.
So no, I don't like the trade from an Ottawa perspective.
Last edited by Kevin8se7en: 03-07-2012 at 02:14 PM.
Reason: stupid auto correct
I honestly can't stand Rundblad. I hate the way he plays the game and I think the guy is beyond soft. IMO he will be one of those guys that bounces around from team to team for the first bit of his career hoping a team can "get the best out of him". I think he's a marginal NHLer at best because of his total lack of defensive awareness and how soft he plays the game. Ottawa sold him at his highest possible value and got a player like Turris that they needed.
Personally I think Ottawa won the trade, short and long term and it isn't even close. I don't think Rundblad ever sees top 2 mins on any NHL team and it's more likely he ends up playing more years in Europe than he does in the NHL.
Turris is a 50pt guy with potential for 65 on a career year (like a Stephen Weiss I guess) Rundblad is a 35-40pt guy with potential for 50 on a career year (like a Brent Burns I guess)
That's the way I see it.
And I would NOT trade away Burns and a 2nd, for Weiss... no one would.
So no, I don't like the trade from an Ottawa perspective.
I must have missed the part where he's actually done that in the NHL or was even on pace for it.
Turris is a 50pt guy with potential for 65 on a career year (like a Stephen Weiss I guess)Rundblad is a 35-40pt guy with potential for 50 on a career year (like a Brent Burns I guess)
That's the way I see it.
And I would NOT trade away Burns and a 2nd, for Weiss... no one would.
So no, I don't like the trade from an Ottawa perspective.
Turris's ceiling is a 70-75pt 2-way number 1 center, not saying that he'll ever reach it...but I think your selling the guy a little short here.
We absolutely won the trade. I never bought into the Rundblad hype machine, and still maintain he won't be the amazing defensman everybody thought he would be. He'll be a top4 d-man, but that's it. Turris will be a solid 1b center.
I bought into it until I watched him play on NA ice again. The WJC he was a disaster as well but I thought maybe that was just a bad 2 weeks of hockey. It wasn't, he can't play the NA game at a decent level nor do I think he has the potential too.
Turris has already show an elite shot, good offensive vision and instincts and strong two way play. His only issue is creating space to make offense happen. If he gets bigger, he'll be able to get into traffic areas with less negative consequence and hopefully open up the ice for himself. It's hard to be a shooter when you're a center and have to carry the play. It took Spezza YEARS to figure out how to be an elite shooter despite having an elite shot.
I like the trade even though Murray usually does well in the draft and having more picks is nice. Rundblad could be an elite player but with Karlsson here he'd be limited to second pairing minutes with, hopefully, 1st PP time. I think the Sens' staff saw how good Karlsson was getting and saw Cowan show more offense than they probably expected and figured Rundblad was expendable.
I've always seen Rundblad as a potential #3 guy. I've looked at Turris as a #2C. Seems like a fair move value-wise but I think Turris addresses an immediate and long-term need, whereas Rundblad addressed a long-term need but not a short-term need.
Is Turris on pace for 65? Cuz I didn't see you complaining about that part...
I was talking about realistic expectations/potential once they reach their prime...
Turris has actually has shown something in the NHL that would indicate he is capable of playing at that kind of level. Rundblad has shown nothing, absolutely nothing that says he can even be in the NHL full time because of how poor of a player he is without the puck and in his own zone. Not to mention the fact he makes extremely poor decisions with the puck when he has it.
Rundblad's problems on small ice are not obvious, they are scary. At this point, a "realistic" expectation for Rundblad is he is at least another full season from being an NHL player, minimum. He may not ever be good enough on the defensive end or without the puck to be a legit, NHL top 4 D man. It's just as likely that he bottoms out as a #6 guy who gets PP time.
