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.
