What is Vegas rebuilding from exactly? The draft is designed to expose good players to be taken which tells us the NHL hopes to have a competitive team right away. Do you expect them to still be competitive in the 6th year when that 2nd rounder plays his 82nd career NHL game? I don't because that isn't really how the NHL works.
They have literally no farm system and they have no prospects. That's why they'd be interested in picks. They're not "rebuilding", they're "building". They'll be getting a bunch of middle pair defensemen and fringe 2nd/3rd liners from the expansion draft. They're not going to be even close to competitive at the start, hence why they'd be interested in picks and prospects to set them up well for the future.
It isn't particularly controversial to say a 2nd isn't really worth anything because those are the facts. Have those picks in 2010 done the guys who made them any good? No, because there are more new GMs than NHL regulars from that class. If you think a 2nd isn't a handful of magic beans, make your case with evidence.
I think you need to look up the definition of a "fact". Because your opinion isn't a fact. If you can find somewhere that I said that 2nd round picks weren't mystery beans, I'll give you a cookie. Mystery beans still have values, to write off 2nd round picks as valueless because most of them bust completely ignores the actual trade landscape of the NHL.
What conspiracy theories? They signed Hjalmarsson to an offer sheet. Since he signed it we can assume it was more than the Blackhawks offered otherwise he'd already have signed with them. Then Chicago didn't have enough space to sign Niemi, who went on to sign with the offer sheeting team in San Jose. Everyone can make up their own mind whether this is a bunch of coincidences that benefited San Jose and hurt Chicago or part of a plan; I go for the latter because people who run teams tend to be smart.
And I'm not arguing they didn't want Hjalmarsson. Driving up his price was a win-win because it ensured they could get one of two good players.
But using that as an argument for how GMs screw over each other really undermines the idea that the Sharks wanted Hjalmarsson. You've been using that RFA situation as evidence for how GMs screw each other over, which is just dumb as ****. Your conspiracy theories of "teams are trying to screw over other teams with offer sheets instead of trying to get those players" is exactly that, a conspiracy theory. You're making baseless assumptions that teams want to screw over other teams more than they want to get players, which is downright asinine and you have no support for it other than your twisted interpretation of reality.
It's clear you don't get it. By your logic, that offer sheet was the most heinous betrayal of a long and productive relationship between GMs, yet it happened anyway. Why wasn't Holmgren made a pariah whom no one would deal with? As I said before, you make such a fine case for my argument that I don't need to respond. All the dots are there for you to connect, I can't force you to read this and understand it any more than I can get you to stop parroting "mental gymnastics" back at me incorrectly.
So wait, you're allowed to accuse me of mental gymnastics but I can't do it the opposite way? Oh, that's rich
You're twisting what actually happened so it can fit your agenda, that's literally 100% what you're doing. Again, you're drawing baseless conclusions based on morphed information and leaps in logic. You're just saying "connect the dots!!", as if that makes your theory suddenly not stupid or something. You're either just ignoring me on purpose or you're just that dense that you can't admit you're wrong here. Do you really think that Philly gave that offer sheet to Weber just to screw over the Predators and not as a way to get him without having to trade for him? Where's your evidence for that?
There's no Giordano-based ceiling on AAVs in the CBA
And there's no rule that says that the Ducks can't spend to the salary cap ceiling, but they don't because they don't have the money. Crazy, huh, each team operates differently.
nor is there a rule about forcing a better defenseman to play on his off side to keep down his value by depressing his numbers
Jesus, in all of your **** arguments here, this one I think takes the cake for the dumbest. This is another perfect example of your morphing reality to fit your agenda. No way it could be that they played Trouba at LD because they liked Myers and Byfuglien more at RD, no, they were intentionally trying to sabotage Trouba. Yeah, sure
nor is there a rule about constraining your cap such that you can't offer Kucherov his true value.
There is a rule about this thing called a salary cap though, maybe you should look it up. Are you really trying to argue that the Lightning screwed over Kucherov because they have a bunch of good players making a lot of money? If not for your previous point on Trouba, this one would be in contention for worst arguments you've made.
If these were good guys who would never try to hurt their competitors, they'd pay Gudreau like he is the best player on the team, because he is and that is what he is worth.
Or maybe the Flames view Giordano (their captain, btw) as the team's best player and no one should be getting more than their captain or best player. I also don't see how this is related to hurting their competitors or not, this has nothing to do with GMs screwing over other teams.
They'd play Trouba ahead of Myers and pay him what he's worth
A. Trouba is better than Myers
B. Trouba is the one holding out here and refusing any offers from the Jets, not the other way around.
and they'd trade Killorn or Coburn so they could pay Kucherov what he's worth.
Oh yeah, that's obviously so easy to do. They can just trade them at the drop of the hat and take back no cap so easily /s
You really seem to not understand how trade markets work. Like at all.
If you don't see how those players were screwed over, that's on you, and if these aren't enough examples to convince you then you will never be convinced.
None of those players were screwed over, and in fact I'd actually even argue that Trouba is screwing over the Jets more.
This is the last thing I'm going to say because you're twisting so much information here that it's making me dizzy. GMs don't act with the intention of screwing over other teams, they act with the intention of making their own teams better off. Offer sheets are teams trying to get better, not screwing over other teams. An example of screwing over other teams with an offer sheet would be the Penguins signing Kucherov when he was an RFA to an offer sheet only to immediately trade him to a team in the Atlantic for more than what the offer sheet was worth. That's actually what screwing over another team looks like. Philly giving Weber an offer sheet that they thought Nashville couldn't match wasn't them screwing over Nashville, it was them trying to get Weber. Teams not paying RFAs what the RFAs think is fair isn't "screwing over other teams", it's trying to make your team as good as possible by trying to get the RFAs for cheap as possible. In fact, RFAs are completely irrelevant to the idea that "GMs operate under the premise of hurting other teams". So basically, provide some actual arguments for how GMs screw over other teams and then I'll actually respond to you in a non sarcastic tone.
I genuinely can't remember the last time a GM went out of their way to screw over another team. Maybe the Schneider trade, where the Canucks took less to trade Schneider to New Jersey instead of Edmonton? I can think of more examples of players trying to screw over teams, like the Trouba situation, the Kessel trade and the Iginla trade just off the top of my head.