He’s producing offensively, so saying he doesn’t bring ANYTHING is an unsupportable statement.
As far as trading him goes, if he’s not worth 6.5M, in the current era nobody will take him back without either sending back an equally overpaid Cap dump OR us including a valuable prospect or pick (as in, not a 2nd). GM’s generally aren’t idiots. If you’re wrong, there’s no way he’s bringing back a piece nearly as good as he is, because there’s no reason for another GM to make that kind of lateral move. Regardless, our defense will be worse next year, because you won’t get a decent UFA with whatever is left over from the Cap space from whichever player comes back for him.
If you disagree with either point, explain how I’m wrong. Otherwise you’re just proudly flying the banner of the Fowler Sucks club, and not providing anything useful to the discussion.
You compared Lindholms offensive #'s over the last couple games to fowlers... well lets go into detail then?(season, not just a handful of games)
Fowler .39 ppg this year(good for 73rd amongst dmen)
Lindholm .37 ppg this year
So yes fowler is infact putting up slightly more points.
Fowler plays 1:15+ mins more on the powerplay, and Lindholm plays 1:30 plus on the PK... so fowler should be producing more with the way the ice time on special teams is distributed. Lindholm has the same amount of points on powerplay as fowler.
Fowler starts in Ozone 52.7% of the time, Lindholm 40.8 that is a pretty decent size gap in zone starts..... and despite all those advantages fowler gets to produce offensively, he is only .02 ppg higher than Lindholm.
Again ill go out and say Lindholm doesn't do enough offensively, but fowler is pretty much worse offensively, doesn't do much defensively.
Now ill go to your more recent post:
His contract is market value, I expect Gardiner to get a similar #... that's just the way the market is... .doesn't make it a good contract, or a bad contract really... but the way fowler has played the last 2 seasons really makes him pretty movable asset specially considering he should be able to return an okay package, we have a ton of money tied up in Perry/Getz/Kesler…. fowler still has trade value.... dmen market is almost always a decent sellers market. So we move fowler... get a package back around what kings got for muzzin. Continue building Guhle Larsson Mahura behind Lindholm, use some of that money, maybe make a play for an actually offensive dmen that can QB the powerplay like Torey Krug... hell id trade fowler for krug straight up no questions asked.
Maybe our defense will be worse, or maybe itll be better... you don't know that and I don't know that.... that's strictly hypothetical by you.... but replacing fowler isn't exactly difficult to do. He really doesn't need to bring back a piece as good as him, giving Lindholm some of that offensive time will increase his #'s a bit... and any of our dmen getting more time on ice #'s should increase, specially if we find a way to grab someone like Krug. A new coach and a new system could help stabilize our defense. Like I said all season part of the defense biggest issue was the system, the forwards never gave them passing options and they all got stuck in the dzone… we don't put enough pressure on the other team offensively which results in our defenders playing D in our zone longer... hopefully the coaching change + offseason changes can fix that.
I don't think fowler sucks, I think the team tried to force him as a #1/#2 guy when in reality he is a #3/#4 guy.... very average defensively. Very average offensively. Great skater, but doesn't use it good enough to his advantage.... and I don't exactly hate fowler I just think hes fat that we can afford to cut.
And I don't recall seeing any other dmen in the league make those bone headed drive bye defensive plays where he leaves someone in front of the net to tap a goal in. All he had to do is stop and play defense... happens far to often with fowler. As for manson I think a majority of us knew he kinda hit his peak, I would have been down to sell high on him last year... I really don't think he will eclipse 30+ points again... he has struggled defensively almost as bad as Fowler... but I think we can at least fix Mansons defensive issues with a new coach/system.