The post I responded to painted Brisebois as an ass for not signing Stamkos.
Stamkos knew what Tampa was willing to do and he went for the money. Nothing wrong with that but Brisebois did the right thing for the franchise by not giving Stamkos what he wanted.
It takes two to tango is my point. I'll never begrudge a player going for money, their careers are short; but the GM has to think longterm.
The person you responded to did not say this. Tampa fans have repeatedly stated that they do not begrudge Brisebois for not signing Stamkos, the issue we have is how he never intended to. His actions, and what he said to the media, never lined up.
The previous summer, when he was eligible to be extended, JBB made no attempt to sign him. Essentially every key member of the team we extend the summer before they reach free agency, we do this to avoid drama at the end, for instance we extended Hedman as soon as we were able to. This pushed Stamkos to finally say something about it to the media, since he didn't want to quietly be pushed aside and wanted to stay. JBB's response:
The problem I have with this response from JBB is he's implying that he has no role in the decision making process, the pieces fall where they fall and he's just a facilitator. He says a lot of nice things about Stamkos, but doesn't address the WHY as to not tabling an offer to Stamkos, while his peers get offers.
Then, on completion of the season
20 days after making this statement, Brisebois traded for McDonagh, eliminating all but about ~3m in cap space. JBB continued to act like we would keep Stamkos.
The Lightning re-acquired defenceman Ryan McDonagh from the Nashville Predators in exchange for a second and fourth-round pick, raising some eyebrows and questions as to whether the team will have the adequate cap space to re-sign their current $8.5 million-per-year captain.
www.sportsnet.ca
Again, the problem I have is that JBB completely glosses over his role as being the decision maker. He didn't accidentally trade for McDonagh and have no cap space, he has a deterministic opinion of Stamkos's worth and was handcuffing his ability to sign him. At this point in time one can reason that JBB thinks Stamkos is worth ~3m per year, and the rumors of him offering that but turning down a 4m aav counter offer from Stamkos seem very accurate.
So, at the end of the day Lightning fans aren't mad that JBB let Stamkos walk, we are mad that he had such a low opinion of him(while praising him in public) that he thought he was only worth ~3m per year. Stamkos still had 40g and was a ppg, but we let him walk because Stamkos needed more than 3m to stay and JBB wasn't budging. The lack of transparency makes the entire process feel really underhanded and deceptive.
