I absolutely agree that only the teams that have the resources and finances to go to war all out can use OS's, but let's not pretend like Dorion didn't have $. Dorion had money, he just chose to spend it on aging vets that sucked and buy outs instead of being savvy enough to offer sheet.
Armstrong doesn't really care if he creates enemies by adding talent to his team, that takes balls and some calculated risks. It wasn't a petty offer sheet like Carolina to KK, but it was taking advantage of a team in cap hell.
Even the Carolin-KK situation was good for the league, even if the KK turned out good, maybe that will tech Habs management that they can't be giving out or keeping bad contracts like Gallagher, Anderson, Armia, etc,.. if they want to keep and retain good talent.
GMs that consistently get taken advantage of and lose in most of their transactions deserve to get fired and if a team or two OS'd us during the Dorion years, maybe Staios would've had the sense to fire him sooner.
Plus a well respected guy like Armstrong is starting to break the mold of dinosaurs in the league who keep reinforcing this taboo of OS's. Armstrong is refuting the notion of this code and its good for the game.
Was there a statement issued for the Blues giving the Oilers an additional 3rd and Fischer? lol that sounds like they felt bad for stealing 2 young players
They stole them true, but at the same time they are overpaying them, not guaranteed they still have a lot of NHL upside left to reach
And I think something very IMPORTANT is lost on many people. Look at when Andlauer took control of the team, look at when Staios had his VP position, look at when Dorion was fired. It all happened within months. They probably wanted to fire Dorion already but took control of the team just before TC, really awful timing, had to wait for something to happen to have an excuse to fire Dorion and lol it may have happened SOONER than they expected.
Sounds Montreal tough - we have 1 guy to defend all these floaters.
I’m not afraid of Montreal, they can score and they can skate, they just don’t have real men on their team and real men win hockey games
That debate of course happened on the main boards and someone posted a thread that I can't find but :
Justin Barron (D) 6'2" 201
Kaiden Guhle (D) 6'2" 205
Lane Hutson (D) 5'10" 161
Mike Matheson (D) 6'2" 187
David Savard (D) 6'1" 234
Jayden Struble (D) 6'0" 194
Arber Xhekaj (D) 6'4" 238
Josh Anderson (RW/LW) 6'3" 220
Joel Armia (RW) 6'4" 218
Cole Caufield (LW/RW) 5'8" 174
Kirby Dach (C) 6'4" 216
Christian Dvorak (LW/C) 6'1" 201
Jake Evans (C/RW) 6'0" 185
Brendan Gallagher (RW) 5'9" 183
Patrik Laine (LW/RW) 6'5" 216
Alex Newhook (C/LW) 5'10" 190
Michael Pezzetta (LW/C) 6'1" 216
Juraj Slafkovský (RW/LW) 6'3" 238
Nick Suzuki (C) 5'11" 212
They have 4 smaller guys, the rest are all tall and/or heavy. David Savard for example is only 6'1 but has TRUNKS for legs, it's not even funny. Suzuki is not 6'0? The guy hasn't missed a freaking NHL game, already an iron man. Pezzetta another 6'1 guy, pretty tough. That team is easily tougher/harder to play against than the Sens, not even close.
A lot of coping, this stuff is unfortunately outdated. Their tides turned around when they changed their whole management and scouting, and mainly moved on from Trevor Timmins. I was "at peace" with the Habs as long as that guy was there.