That would have been a terrible trade.
I mean, we are not getting Byram for Miller now, so the trade would have been better long term but we would have missed out on last season.
For the record, at the time I was fine trading Miller for Byram, but I was willing to take on the injury risk in order to get the highest potential value asset in return for Miller.
Bo was asking for too much in the summer. If you truly want to stay with a team you don't do that.
He should have come about halfway in between RNH and Couturier, so about $6.5m. He was about a 30g/30a player but was not getting very good results defensively despite his reputation.
The Canucks were at about $6m in their offer, but he wanted to be paid like Miller. A $2m gap is very hard to bridge and he needed to come down significantly in order get the deal done. Then he went on a heater, his asking price went up even higher, and the Canucks rightly felt that his production wasn't sustainable and they moved him.
Once again, if he wanted to stay, he would have been more reasonable in the summer instead of pushing for top dollar.
Ya, I think Horvat was trying to get the best possible deal he could, and negotiated that way. Its why he wasn't willing to sign in the summer which would put pressure on the Canucks to increase their price. The Canucks, conversely, essentially called his bluff in the summer because what he was asking in the summer wasn't market. At the time, each side was behaving pretty logical. I don't blame the Canucks for not matching Horvat's ask in the summer, and I don't blame Horvat for trying to get the most money he could.
The unexpected part of the whole thing was Horvat going on a heater and turning into a 50 goal scorer. This made it clear that the Canucks would have to pay the full asking price for Horvat based on a small sample size that probably wasn't sustainable, and I have no issue with management being not willing to do so. And so Horvat was traded.
At the end of the day, I am not really sure how much of it was "Miller vs. Horvat" as some have suggested. I think the Canucks, prior to Horvat magically going on a 50 goal scoring pace heater, probably wanted to sign both.
Debrusk delivers that for significantly less and has had a consistently good two-way profile through his career. I like Brock but his game does not look like it will age well and even in his prime he was way too often a passenger.
Boeser just doesn't move the needle enough to be worth a premium.
While I agree with all of this, if the team trades Boeser or lets him walk, the risk they don’t find something better to spend the money on this offseason is pretty high, especially since he seems to be popular with his teammates.
If they don’t replace him with something comparable or better and the team struggles next year that is probably the end of the current core, if the Miller / Pettersson thing doesn’t tank it first.
I think you guys are both right. And I think
@credulous made the point earlier, but if the Canucks were and had been a well run organization for a while, we would have a player that was ready to step into Boeser's place next year and we would trade or let Boeser walk. I am not so sure that Lekkerimaki will be that player next year, but its not the worst gamble.
The problem with Boeser, as you have said, is that he's a passenger and doesn't drive play. But more than that, he's also been quite inconsistent. Posters like to think of him as the 40 goal guy he was last season, but people forget that he scored 18 and 23 goals the preceding two season, and that in general, he hasn't been great value for his current three year contract.
And add to all of that, he's generally been injury prone, having never played a full season and usually missing 10-20 games.
This season he is on pace for 28 goals.
So, I can see what management is hesitant to give him the bag over a long term deal, but obviously salary cap escalations may ease that hesitancy.
