Yes, I was very worried about Edler being washed. This is not some sort of 'gotcha'. I've discussed this endlessly for the last 8 years, and explained where my thought process came from that turned out wrong. We had just watched Keith Ballard crater in the 10-11 season after an injury, could have traded him in the summer of 2011, and then went back to him and got stuck with a negative-value albatross. Edler's situation in 2014 reminded me of that situation and I thought the best option would be to get out of that contract and re-invest it in another defender who was trending better. And this was not a controversial opinion at the time. Again, if Edler had been a UFA in 2014 probably 70-80% of this board would have been against re-signing him.
And what I learned from that was that I probably underrated the impact a bad situation can have on a player. And this is why, in a similar situation in 2021, I'm adamant that you don't trade a Pettersson until you fix the GM/coach disaster and see how he performs refreshed in a refreshed situation.
That you continue to go back 8 years for this is ... weird. Everyone here has projected players wrong, including Edler. Most of this board wanted to take a 2nd rounder for Kesler. Sedin Sisters stuff went on for years. People called Tanev a 'skinny #5 with no shot' and were still doing so when he was obviously an elite top-pairing shutdown defender.
The only reason my opinion was controversial was the 'WAIVERS!' thing. And the waivers thing was only because most of the people on this board were trying to trade Edler while I was trying to explain that he would not waive his NTC so trading him was impossible, and this was the only way around it. And this was 100% correct. And if you're still trying to pull the 'LOL YOU WANTED TO WAIVE EDLER!' thing as though I was saying that Edler=current Brad Hunt, you are either a) trolling by deliberately misrepresenting my argument or b) showing zero understanding of the argument that was being made.
Actually, I think this is the most humility I think I have seen you show while explaining this.
I get that the difference between he and Hunt in your eyes was that getting rid of Edler would mean +6million in cap space, but it was still a bad assessment and I was arguing at the time that he was beaten down by Torts and was too good to stay this bad.
My point isn't to relitigate the point 8 years later to rub your nose in it, but because I think you're a really knowledgeable poster who (IMO) has struggled at times to admit when you are wrong.
Regardless, this Canucks team is an abortion and it's bringing out the worst in a lot of us. I could have been more tactful and I apologize for that.
I will offer a take that's not looking great by me as a mea culpa.
It's looking like Pearson might be washed. I was a defender of his re-signing seeing it as the regime learning that you can't throw out all of the vets in your dressing room like Tanev, Markstrom (who they were right to get rid of), and Stecher without it having repercussions.
I also figured that with him taking a pay cut, it couldn't be too bad of a thing.
Actually, I'm a little bullish that if he gets finally taken away from Horvat and placed with Dickinson on a devoted shutdown line he could still be decent, but currently it looks like a bad investment. He has lost his wheels and is playing like a liability.
