This is pretty much it. The Reaves trade in and of itself isn't the issue. The issue is that trade illustrated the p***yfication of the team by Sullivan and how he absolutely does not understand how to utilize players to their strengths.
That trade highlighted a perfect example of a player being brought in for a purpose and Sullivan refusing to allow that player to do what he's supposed to do. It's no different than how Sullivan handles "skilled" players now. The first shit out of his mouth is about how a player PKs.
God, I've never loathed a coach as much as I do Sullivan.
Looking back, I think the Reaves illustrated a shift in the player market and league trends and the glaring supply and demand issue. In 2016, we caught everyone off guard with our four lines of speed. Every single line could play offense and defense and skate you into the ground with aggressive forecheckers. Being backstopped by Murray helped too. But in both 2016 and 2017, the goal was be physical enough to try to stop that speed. Washington with guys like Ovie, Oshie, and Wilson, came very, VERY close both times. And when "push came to shove" we didn't have the ability to push back. Remember Wilson's knee on Sheary? Who was going to do something about that?
Well you go around the "league market" and it was more or less barren of guys who could be physical that weren't pure goons. There weren't many, if any guys like Maroon, Wilson, Lucic, etc available. I think Reaves was a guy that JR could actually get that could actually take a shift unlike a guy like Godard or god forbid Steve MacIntyre. The guys that could actually play in the top 6 that could bang were super valuable. Hell, we understood the value Hornqvist had!
2017 marked the shift towards speed AND physicality with the depth. That was the direction the league was going in and honestly, it's been going that way ever since. Washington won with it, then St Louis took note and won with it, then you had Tampa whose back end was a bunch of redwood trees. All the while, we watch guys like Maroon and Perry be valuable to their teams. Now whether or not Reaves could have been is highly debatable but at least those teams were willing to play those guys and find out. I do think a problem with Reaves as a player is, he's a "I'm gonna hit, fight, and be physical first and worry about scoring and playing second". If he had a mindset shift to "I need to focus on scoring and let the physicality part come to me", I think he could have done better.
JR was always a bit ahead of his time. Good example of when thought processes and how the game is viewed trending wise can differ and be destructive.
