Confirmed with Link: Kovacevic Traded to the Devils for 2026 4th Round pick (Highest of the three 4th Rounders the Devils own)

[26Mats]

lol they had to remove the log-jam. Unless you guys want Struble, who has earned NHL time, going to Laval.. or Arber going there and losing our toughness, or just flat out waiving Barron.. this trade had to happen.

I suppose there is an debate to be had: if we could have traded Barron for a 4th should we have traded Barron or Kovacevic for the 4th.

But we don't know what Barron's trade value is/was. And we'll see what Barron becomes.

 

[Natey]

lol they had to remove the log-jam. Unless you guys want Struble, who has earned NHL time, going to Laval.. or Arber going there and losing our toughness, or just flat out waiving Barron.. this trade had to happen.

lol I'd rather trade Barron, who has never been good, then a reliable defenseman who helped keep pucks out of our net.

Why jump the gun? Kovacevic's value was never going to go down really, so he could have made the trade at any time.

He never jumps the gun any other time or we would have dealt Anderson when he had value. Probably Matheson too when he was a peak of his value.

 

[26Mats]

You mean the dude logging over 20 minutes a night for a better team, with more points then anyone on our roster, who was one of the only 'plus' players here the last couple of years while we have people like Justin Barron dressing for games?

Yeah.

There's a reason teams like Toronto don't win cups. The supporting cast is trash. Kovacevic was the perfect example of a moderately paid but solid piece.

Kovacevic had his pluses and minuses. We'll see if he can iron out his game. I'll root for him.

But what he's done so far this season is not a big enough sample size to draw conclusions from, or say see I told you so - yet.

 

[LaP]

You gotta give time and let players play to grow. Revisit this in a year and see if you feel the same

A year is not enough. It's somethiong you have to revisit in 5 years. Let's just pretend Kova has a breakout season. We have seen this movie so many times. He's 27. He'll have 2-3 good seasons and then hit a wall at 28-29. See Paul Byron, Oleg Petropv, Brent Clark, ... the narative that we could exploit that to get a pick at a deadline is flawed cause it would line up with us starting to compete and then KH would have the useless pressure to keep Kova.

We have so many young dmen with potential as high or higher then Kova. Struble, Guhle, Mailloux, Hutson, Engstrom, Reinbacher, Kony, Xhekaj, Barron, i'd even be temped to add Protz but that's too soon. They don't all play the same style as Kova but they all got the potential to be in front of him in the depth chart. Some of them will flop obviously but that's 9 names who will need TOI very soon. Keeping Kova just to upgrade a 4th into a 3rd would have been a waste of his and our time. KOva will need to be the next Souray for this trade to stink.

And before some people start to ramble about how Barron sucks when Kova was the same age as Barron he was playing in the AHL and was a middling prospect. Winnipeg waived him two years later without giving him a proper chance. Dmen are not a finished product at 22.

Would rather Kova over Barron - and it's not close.

I'd rather no waste time on a 27 years old "prospect" who will be on the decline once our rebuild is done and who was not any better than Barron when he was the same age.

 

[Natey]

Kovacevic had his pluses and minuses. We'll see if he can iron out his game. I'll root for him.

But what he's done so far this season is not a big enough sample size to draw conclusions from, or say see I told you so - yet.

He's doing exactly what he was doing here. Putting up solid points for his ice-time while not being on the ice for goals against.

Kovacevic started playing pro hockey in 2018-2019.

He's never once been a minus player. Now, plus minus isn't some incredible stat because there are many underlying factors, but generally it's a solid indication over a large sample size. ESPECIALLY since the pro teams he's played on have all been pretty bad.

 

[LaP]

You mean the dude logging over 20 minutes a night for a better team, with more points then anyone on our roster, who was one of the only 'plus' players here the last couple of years while we have people like Justin Barron dressing for games?

Yeah.

There's a reason teams like Toronto don't win cups. The supporting cast is trash. Kovacevic was the perfect example of a moderately paid but solid piece.

Two games. Repeat after me all TWO GAMES. Do you remember the time Josh Gorges had 2 goals in 2 games one of them being a generational player type of goal? I DO!

 

[26Mats]

He's doing exactly what he was doing here. Putting up solid points for his ice-time while not being on the ice for goals against.

Kovacevic started playing pro hockey in 2018-2019.

He's never once been a minus player. Now, plus minus isn't some incredible stat because there are many underlying factors, but generally it's a solid indication over a large sample size. ESPECIALLY since the pro teams he's played on have all been pretty bad.

Who do you have him ahead of:

Matheson - Guhle
Hutson - Reinbacher
Xhekaj - Mailloux
Struble - Engstrom
Bogdan

 

[Natey]

A year is not enough. It's somethiong you have to revisit in 5 years. Let's just pretend Kova has a breakout season. We have seen this movie so many times. He's 27. He'll have 2-3 good seasons and then hit a wall at 28-29. See Paul Byron, Oleg Petropv, Brent Clark, ... the narative that we could exploit that to get a pick at a deadline is flawed cause it would line up with us starting to compete and then KH would have the useless pressure to keep Kova.

We have so many young dmen with potential as high or higher then Kova. Struble, Guhle, Mailloux, Hutson, Engstrom, Reinbacher, Kony, Xhekaj, Barron, i'd even be temped to add Protz but that's too soon. They don't all play the same style as Kova but they all got the potential to be in front of him in the depth chart. Some of them will flop obviously but that's 9 names who will need TOI very soon. Keeping Kova just to upgrade a 4th into a 3rd would have been a waste of his and our time. KOva will need to be the next Souray for this trade to stink.

And before some people start to ramble about how Barron sucks when Kova was the same age as Barron he was playing in the AHL and was a middling prospect. Winnipeg waived him two years later without giving him a proper chance. Dmen are not a finished product at 22.


I'd rather no waste time on a 27 years old "prospect" who will be on the decline once our rebuild is done and who was not any better than Barron when he was the same age.

I 100% agree that defenseman are not a finished product at 22.

But do you know what is pretty finished? Their development of hockey IQ. Barron's is very weak. He's not Josh Anderson levels, but he's not much higher. If Barron ever amounts to anything it's because coaches have changed his game so much that he's not the defenseman they wanted when they traded for him. You can see pretty easily what players are carried by talent. Barron is one of the those players.

And a year is plenty enough. Who cares what Kovacevic is in 5 years. We're not talking about 5 years from now or if he'd be a saviour. He's not. But he's damn sure a better hockey player than some of the players we've kept.

 

[gusfring]

I'd rather no waste time on a 27 years old "prospect" who will be on the decline once our rebuild is done and who was not any better than Barron when he was the same age.

He makes way fewer mistakes than Barron. "Rebuild is done"? How long will this rebuild go? Shouldn't we expect a bit more at this stage?

 

[Natey]

Who do you have him ahead of:

Matheson - Guhle
Hutson - Reinbacher
Xhekaj - Mailloux
Struble - Engstrom
Bogdan

This is f***ing wild.

You just listed me 9 defenseman and 4 of them aren't even on the roster.

This type of post isn't even worth a response. Guess we should start trading all players who players down the road might be ahead of.

 

[Le Barron de HF]

Barron has a higher ceiling than Kovacevic. The latter showed he was incapable of playing top 4 minutes here

 

[LaP]

He makes way fewer mistakes than Barron. "Rebuild is done"? How long will this rebuild go? Shouldn't we expect a bit more at this stage?

Rebuild is not done and not even close. Anyone who believe otherwise is just folling himself. If Kova was 23-24 he would likely still be in Montreal. But he's 27 and the jury is still out. As to how long the rebuild go it will be a minimum of 5 years like all rebuild. In february we'll be 3 years into the rebuild.

 

[Natey]

Nothing like early season hot takes. Every god damn years ...

God I love hypocritical posts like this.

"I cam post my opinions, but if anyone else does it's a hot take!!!"

 

[26Mats]

This is f***ing wild.

You just listed me 9 defenseman and 4 of them aren't even on the roster.

This type of post isn't even worth a response. Guess we should start trading all players who players down the road might be ahead of.

We're building for the future. It's why we traded players like Toffoli, Chiarot, Monahan etc... who were ahead of current young players.

If management saw Kovacevic as part of the future, he wouldn't have been traded.

 

[Natey]

Barron has a higher ceiling than Kovacevic. The latter showed he was incapable of playing top 4 minutes here

How often was he given the chance to play Top-4? I'll tell you.. not many.

How many goals was he on the ice for? I'll tell you again... not many.

Barron was a terrible acquisition from Day 1. We got robbed in that trade. Colorado traded a nothing piece for a guy who was very close to being playoff MVP.

 

[gusfring]

Rebuild is not done and not even close. Anyone who believe otherwise is just folling himself. If Kova was 23-24 he would likely still be in Montreal. But he's 27 and the jury is still out. As to how long the rebuild go it will be a minimum of 5 years like all rebuild. In february we'll be 3 years into the rebuild.

I said a "bit more". Should we not expect improvement, even if it's incremental? We aren't the Buffalo Sabres.

 

[Natey]

We're building for the future. It's why we traded players like Toffoli, Chiarot, etc... who were ahead of current young players.

No. We traded them because the returns were very very good for a rebuilding team.

They traded Kovacevic for a high five.

 

[gusfring]

Barron has a higher ceiling than Kovacevic. The latter showed he was incapable of playing top 4 minutes here

No he doesn't. His ceiling is a bottom pair dman. Nothing more. Kovacevic is there already and much better at it.

 

[LaP]

Barron has a higher ceiling than Kovacevic. The latter showed he was incapable of playing top 4 minutes here

To me it's not even about Barron having a higher celling or not. It's mostly about Barron being 22. If Barron develops in the next two years then we'll have a serviceable 24 years old dman with at least 5 years of prime ahead of him. If not we can always sign or trade for someone. 3rd pairing dmen don't cost a lot they are fairly easy to obtain.

Kova was 27 and the jury was still out. We have seen this type of players a thousand times. They very rarely last for more than 2-3 years. I called it with Byron when we extended it and i don't care about the injury excuse it was predictable he would not last more than 2-3 years cause it's what happen 90% of the time with late bloomers like that. If we would have been deeper into the rebuild yeah it could be seen as a questionable move.

 

[Captain Mountain]

I somehow always forget how deranged this fanbase can get sometimes.

Getting worked up about a traded waiver claim mid-rebuild because the bottom of the D core could be slightly better is hilarious.

 

[Non Player Canadiens]

again?? straight to jail.

 

[Natey]

If management saw Kovacevic as part of the future, he wouldn't have been traded.

Cool. I love this take.

No shit they didn't see him as part of the future. I'm saying they were wrong.

On that note, I expect to never see you question a move we make again because this post of yours says you always should just see eye to eye and never question management.

 

[Natey]

I somehow always forget how deranged this fanbase can get sometimes.

Getting worked up about a traded waiver claim mid-rebuild because the bottom of the D core could be slightly better is hilarious.

Oh nice, the Maple Leafs mentality. Maybe you'd be happier cheering for them.

 

[Captain Mountain]

A nice, the Maple Leafs mentality. Maybe you'd be happier cheering for them.

Are you arguing that the Leaf's fanbase isn't deranged or doesn't get worked up about shit like that? Lol.

 

[Colezuki]

Cool. I love this take.

No shit they didn't see him as part of the future. I'm saying they were wrong.

On that note, I expect to never see you question a move we make again because this post of yours says you always should just see eye to eye and never question management.

I don't know how you could speak so firmly on the topic given that he's 27 and had 2 good games on a good team, that doesn't change the fact that for the last year he was a 5/6/7 with us and a waiver claim from the jets. In 10 games if he's back to being a 5/6/7 will you still be so vocal?