renberg
Registered User
I’ll go with you in that CF’s hands were somewhat limited regarding Ghost and Jake. A recently hired coach with a large contract and term demands that certain players be moved or obtained what can CF do? He knows that the coach will go over his head in order to get what he wants done. He has no choice but to comply. The cost of this expungement is a question. CF might have been able to do better but he didn’t.CF never really ran the team until Holmgren "retired", he was hired to run a consensus FO (after Hextall's Kremlin approach). AV had a lot of pull with that contract (it took a total collapse for the FO to eat the rest of his contract). AV wanted Ghost and Voracek gone, given there was no cap room b/c of the flat cap due to COVID, CF was backed into a corner. Trading Ghost and Voracek freed about $8M in cap room to get players AV wanted. Nor would keeping them have made a difference, the problem with the team was fundamental, aging, cap strapped with little left in the talent pipeline. The team had 61 points, had they kept those two, what, 66 points? Big deal.
Stralman had one year left at $5M, that should have been a cheaper salary dump. What matters in a salary dump is how much cap room you take on, not the quality of the player - Arizona was tanking, they didn't care about the quality of player they received. Cap room was at a premium around the league.
The bigger problem here was the tail being able to wag the dog. An organization simply can not allow any coach to have the power in the FO that AV had. The coach’s concerns are short term-to keep his job. The GM’s concern should be long term-build a long contending team. The two are not completely on the same page. Successful franchises give the GM the upper hand. Evidently the Flyers did not learn this lesson with CF/AV since they’ve set themselves up for a repeat with Briere and Tortorella.