Exactly. As good as Suzuki is, Vegas got exactly what they wanted, and more, in Patches. While I'm sure they wish they had given MB the player he wanted in Glass instead of Suzuki, at the time of the trade there was no reason to believe Nick would surpass Cody as much as he has.
Either way, Vegas still makes that deal even with Nick's progress. Not at all comparable to MBs gaffe moving Sergachev for Drouin.
I hate to bring this up again, but when you look at it on paper at the time, with or without hindsight;
Montreal Canadiens Captain, best point getter on the habs by a fair margain, top 5 best LWer for goal scoring during the previous 7 years, plays PP and PK, can eat 20+ minutes a night safely as a defensive minded scorer. Wweet heart 4.5 million contract habs will retain even more salary on for the deal
Made David Desharnais look like a #1 center. (Goes on to just shy of PPG player on their team!) Star caliber player to draw fans in entertainment mecca vegas.
Vegas-underperforming, bad playoff player, contract dump of tatar 5.4 million, AHL center with the depth to not care as much as a star level 1LW they needed, a second round pick end of the next season (sept trade) that would take at least 3 or more years to develop, even if its a good pick. With an already full stable of picks to develop thanks to the expansion draft. Win now mode! We even traded that second to get a 3rd and 5th. Norlinder was 64th overall.
They still win this trade. Suzi has been great for us and Nor might be a good 4th dman...but this is already 3 years out from the trade and we have a great promise but it doesn't beat the value they got in that trade, regardless of tatars couple of 'good' seasons or how good our future might be with suzuki.
At the time of the trade it was a HUGE win for vegas. We know how patches is a complimentary player, but on paper he looks like a lot more.
We have people that say 2+ round picks are inter changeable and have little value. So its of little consequence when its Dvorak, but a win when MB does it with Patches. Otherwise contract dumps usually net you picks and prospects anyway. So in essence VGK Suzuki(magic beans AHL player at the time) for Patches-win now move. Tatar and 2nd round to dump contract and make the money work. I hope Suzuki can be a PPG player for us, as max has been for vegas, but that remains to be seen.
Ryan McDonagh, Scott Gomez and what the Canadiens paid to go for it - Sportsnet.ca Nice tree that we enabled in this trade.
The cost of trading a bad Contract salary dump discussion here.
Cam York? First-round pick? NHL teams asking silly prices to take on salary
The Philadelphia Flyers finally cleared some salary on Thursday afternoon. They
traded Shayne Gostisbehere and his $4.5 million cap hit (along with second- and seventh-round picks) to the Arizona Coyotes for that cap relief.
