Bunting may yet recover and be tradeable at the deadline, to squeeze out more from that trade.
Ponomarev and Koivunen are former 2nd rounders. Lucius is a 4th. Then obviously Brunicke as you mentioned.
Would you rather have a late 1st than all this? Late 1sts turn into good NHL'ers like 25% of the time.
I'd much rather roll the dice on 5 guys than put all my chips on one. Scouts constantly get it wrong. I don't trust them.
That's a false choice fallacy.
I don't really care to relitigate this because none of us really know what was on the table, but there were a lot of rumors that involved top prospects or young NHLers like Kakko+a pick. It wasn't necessary what they got or a late 1st and that's it.
And really, I'm not even arguing one side or the other. I'm just saying I understand being disappointed with the Guentzel trade. If that's your opinion, cool. If it's not, also cool. I see both sides. The rest of the trades, though, I think have been pretty good.
Hayes and Glass are only here because of the picks that came with them. If they perform well that's just a bonus.
Sure, but they are combing for $6M in cap space and playing mostly on the 4th line while Sid has been playing with guys that shouldn't be above the 3rd line.
Unless they can turn the top 6 around, that's going to remain a criticism of those trades IMO. I'm just not as down on it now because at least Hayes and Glass are playing pretty well.