The Ron Francis defenders are all over the map.
"Francis didn't make big moves in Carolina because owners were cheap - but Seattle owners will spend big, so just watch Ronny go big at the trade deadline!"
"Francis couldn't take chances on big salaries because ownership didn't have the dough!"
"Francis went all in for free agency because the Kraken had to win right away - he couldn't just tank and build the cupboard!"
I'm not sure what explains the dedication to pretending that Francis is doing a good job while we sit here with minimal extra draft picks, very few good young players, and a garbage product on the ice....
So let's say you're right and ownership vetoed Tarasenko because he's too expensive. Now explain taking Quenneville over, say, Zadorov. Is that ownership's fault too?
Are you actually trying to compare an expansion team that just went 2 billion dollars in the hole to come into the league, but is willing to spend the cap if quality players are available, but is not willing to throw 10 million on a gamble for a draft pick the same situation as a team that cuts payroll costs and won't actively spend to the cap?
Can you not understand that those two things are not mutually exclusive?
You are twisting words from two different posters to try to create a perception of contradiction - it is akin to twisting peoples words out of context. It is dishonest.
Selecting Quenneville was the equivalent of Francis saying "you have no contracts that I want, so I am going to pass".
Zadorov was on the market for months, and with his rumored high salary demands he had absolutely zero value before UFA opened. Treliving panicked weeks after missing the boat in the UFA market and gave up a likely late third(Toronto) to rent him for a year, but there is zero guarantee he would have given Francis that, and would have instead looked elsewhere. Rumor was that he was not happy with Francis selecting Gio.
Zadorov has very little value now, even as a rental at almost 4 million.
Drafting a player that you have no room for on your team that was asking for way more salary than he was worth and hoping that something will come up is not a wise GM move.
I will admit that I have been a strong defender of many of Francis' moves when I feel like the arguments for the criticism are unrealistic, but I have also been fairly critical of several of the moves as well (Oleksiak, Grubauer and Schwartz signings - I've come here and eaten crow on the Oleksiak move, but I still often gripe about the Schwartz signing, as I think that contract will be worse than Grubauer's long term).
As someone that *tries* to call it like it is, I feel like no one can judge Francis' plan until after the deadline.
If he moves all the UFAs for picks, like he did in Carolina, then we'll have a good idea of his plan. If he hangs onto them and re-sign's guys heading into their 30s, then things will be different, and we can assess the performance then, when we have more of the information we need to make proper evaluations of his moves.
