I love this post because it allows me to make my main criticism of Jarmo - he is more of a reactor than a planner. Part of that is the hand he has been dealt over the years, but he has built his reputation more based on how he has reacted to situations than making a plan, sticking to it, and seeing it through.
the problem with this particular comparison (jarmo vs fitzgerald) is that most of new jersey's core players are holdovers from the ray shero era.
fitzgerald took over a team that had just won two draft lotteries just as those players were about to break out, finished in the bottom-five, landed the best free agent on the market anyway, then had
another bottom-five year and lucked into
another lottery win, landing them nemec.
he's made some very good moves, but the heavy lifting has been done by a ton of just absolutely stupid dumb luck. it's a flawed comparison from the jump.
- With 2 years until Severson was a free agent, New Jersey signed Dougie Hamilton. The gave him a contract with a cap hit of $9 million. (Many people thought that was a mistake.) But they signed him with a contract where he was going to be the #1 RD, at least for the first several years of the contract.
signing hamilton was/is inarguably good for new jersey. that said, hamilton…
- was a 28-year-old RHD coming off a career year on a very strong team
- was not the #1 RHD on that very strong team
- was signed for maximum term, likely to become burdensome in the last few years
- was joining a team that was in the bottom-five the year prior
literally all of those points also apply to damon severson. (not saying he's as good as hamilton, but hamilton is making 50% more)
again, the hamilton signing is good! but you can't point to the severson deal as evidence that jarmo is a trash GM, then turn around and say fitzgerald is a genius GM for giving out a 50% more expensive (AAV) version of the exact same deal to a player coming off of nearly identical circumstances.
- With 1 year until Severson was a free agent, New Jersey traded for John Marino. He had 5 years left on his contract. Additionally NJ used the second overall pick on Nemec and additionally used a 2nd round pick on Seamus Casey.
the marino trade was simply a rebuilding team adding surplus value, since pittsburgh needed to shed some cap. the nemec pick was them lucking into another lotto win + taking the best player on their board, who just happened to be a RHD.
the end result of these moves was seeing a current RHD (severson) becoming expendable, but that was hardly the intent of the moves when they made them. rebuilding teams are focused more on sheer value adds, not specific positional upgrades.
as for seamus casey, well… he's a second round pick. that has nothing to do with damon severson. but if he and nemec both pan out, that could make hamilton/marino expendable. does that mean they picked seamus casey so they could one day replace one of those guys? nope.
I don’t know when New Jersey decided that Severson wasn’t core, but it was at least 1 year ago and possibly 2 years ago.
the precise moment when that happened was when they were able to add another core player (meier) without giving up nemec.
had san jose balked at that trade, i bet they would've kept severson and traded marino this summer for someone like debrincat. but that's just my opinion. alternatively, if they don't sign palat, they probably keep severson with that money and take their time with nemec.
All indications were that we hadn’t even planned on targeting Gaudreau until Gudbranson told Nash that we should go after Gaudreau.
they sent gaudreau an offer as soon as free agency opened. they didn't hear back from gaudreau's camp until nash said that gaudreau told gudbranson that he wanted to come to columbus.
it's semantics, but they had absolutely targeted gaudreau (and, reportedly, kadri) but weren't expecting to pull it off because, well, why would they?
@cbjthrowaway , some things:
to be clear: i'm not comparing what NJD did to what CBJ did (which i think is how you read my post) – i'm just pointing out that new jersey got
absurdly lucky at every turn over the last few years, which put them in a position where it made sense for them to let severson walk.
getting hamilton, drafting 1OA twice, moving up a third time in the lotto for nemec, having a 6th round pick turn into a 70+ point guy, getting a massive improvement in goaltending results after only adding a career backup, being able to acquire meier without giving up nemec, etc.– it's not all part of some genius plan, it is pure luck.
