Don’t be scared, I’m well aware those two have little trade value. I’ve commented many times they should be bought out — and I’ve taken into account the cap penalty. A pair of buyouts would’ve been an aggressive and necessary move — in particular for floater Joel Armia who was at or below replacement level last season.
It’s penny wise pound foolish to deny rookies roster spots and not sign roster upgrades and instead hoard cap space and ‘assets’ (late round picks? Who cares) whilst retaining irrelevant players like Hofmann and Armia.
But we were talking about Anderson:
Not productive enough to retain at all costs.
I like Savard and agree with your take, I would prefer to retain him. But in the greater scheme of rebuilding and escaping the gravitational pull of “Loser Team” we need to shed dead weight — not one of the aforementioned players will feature in our future.
So it is plainly obvious that Hughes did have pieces he could move but chose to sit on his hands and talk about culture instead (while the team lost but missed on a top3 draft pick).
Hughes hasn’t been able yet to do the hard part (assemble a winning roster) or even enough of the necessary part (acquire quality players ). He’s instead held onto irrelevant players who will certainly and without any doubt have zero impact on any future competitive window.
I love the Matheson trade and Dach has upside. If they’re the best players Hughes can acquire, we are in big big trouble.
Buries and buyouts exist for a reason. Other teams manoeuvre aggressively. Hughes has been cautious so far.
It is real life — good teams do what it takes to maximize their chances of success at all times. Bad teams think they can wait it out while the sand washes away under their feet… and fans eat it up because they think time is not a valuable resource, on video games you can sim through seasons. In real life it doesn’t work that way.
What happened to Anderson talk? Forgot about him?
Well… Hughes shouldn’t be so greedy. That’s my original comment, and I’m sticking to it.
Anderson is a 0.5ppg player if we’re being generous. Has significant injury history and isn’t as physical as his reputation implies. He is not capable of east-west play and is extremely hot and cold in terms of production. He had 6pts in 22gp in our big playoff run. His reputation across the league is not particularly growing since that point either.
Is he worth keeping just to keep? Is he worth selling just to sell? I don’t have an answer but my position on it is that Hughes need to make up his mind. Some here say that Hughes has taken a direction but I don’t see it, I see him hedging and sitting on his hands. Rushing Slafkovsky and starting the season with four rookie dmen on one hand and refusing to sell or get rid of Hoffman and Anderson, extending Jake Allen to an unmovable contract on the other.
I really don't get the sense of the narrative you are trying to spin about Hughes being like Bergevin to date in his mandate.
The scarecrow about repeating what was said about being patient with management when Bergervin was around and it leading to the same results ten years later is, IMO, at best, far-fetched.
Hughes' mandate as GM of this team has been no longer than a year and a half to date but, IMHO, he has displayed cohonnes that marc Bergevin lacked early on in his tenure.
Hughes also inherited, from Bergevin, a lot more dead wood than Bergevin had from the past regime. Bergevin also had to Get out of jail cards with buyouts that wouldn't count against the Cap.
First off, Hughes wasn't afraid to take a chance on St-Louis as head coach in a bid to stray from the D-first, ultra-conservative coaching philosophy that had plagued the Habs forever.
Sure, he had good will as a GM to pull off such a move and adding a hall-of-fame, francophone voice behind the bench bought him the benefit of the doubt, assuredly, at least long enough to see if the coach would be any good.
The results with Caufield and Suzuki to end the season were already convincing fans that things were changing.
Hughes used the first half of his tenure to analyse the strengths and weaknesses of his team, then aggressively moved on swapping his better assets that weren't part of the future for interesting returns, a mix of draft picks and prospects perhaps closer to the NHL than late first round or 2nd round draft picks.
Par for the course expected from any new GM, but I'd argue he showed good poise in trading the assets he did for good returns; Toffoli for a 1st round pick and Heinemann, Chiarot for a first round pick and Smilanic, Kulak for a 2nd round pick, Lehkonen for Justin Barron.
During his first offseason, he didn't shy away from trading a solid D and fan favourite in Romanov to acquire the 13th OA pick required to make the Dach deal happen, adding a 3rd rounder in that deal.
Sure, it was a project and a measured gamble, but, also a means of acquiring a c with both size, skill and remaining upside.
Bergevin had just found it very, very difficult to trade for a Center in today's NHL...
Bergevin also made a decent move in accommodating Petry when he traded him to PIT for Matheson. Some already were arguing he was repatriating an old client and that this was a bad sign for things to come.
Despite Matheson panning out quite well for the Habs, those same people are arguing the same thing about Newhook.
Hughes may have disappointed some fans by selecting Slafkovsky at 1st OA in a weak draft year, or Reinbacher over Michkov at 5th OA in this draft year, an allegedly strong draft year for forwards.
But, one thing Hughes hasn't done yet is try to immediately put the Habs back into middling territory where his team would hover around the playoff spot, making it, or not making it, depending on the year.
He added youngsters that can grow with the current young core, not over-the-hill or near over-the-hill veterans on their last legs just to make the playoffs.
I believe he does have a plan and is sticking to it with expectations that we might not make the playoffs again, this year, but that the team is looking to see improvement and progression from the troops.
I believe that the plan is aimed at the long game of being in contention for years to come, not some quick fix to make the playoffs and see what happens then.
Building a strong D, as it seems to be shaping up, is part of that blueprint. Building a solid C-line, as he seems to hope to be doing with Suzuki, Dach and Beck for the top-9 also appears to be part of the blueprint. A top-scoring winger, inherited from the past regime in Caufield seems to be fitting nicely into that vision, along, maybe, with the newly acquired speedster with an NHL shot, Newhook.
Drafting the talented mammoth, Slafkovsky seems to aim at surrounding those smaller, talented scorers with size and skill at the same time. Of course, the young Slafkovsky still needs to grow into his role with the Habs.
There's still some strength to add up front, but it's been barely a year and a half and that can still come through future drafts, trades (using the rising strength and depth of talent on D, perhaps) and the UFA front over the coming few years.
Also, there's stil some dead wood to toss overboard and all of it should be gone within two years, outside of the Gallagher contract and assuming that Proce doesn't have a miracle recovery that sees him return to the ice.
I don' see an inactive GM and I see one more methodological than Bergevin who, despite some good moves, was unable to make the follow-up move to maximize the previous move.
Right or wrong, I have the impression that Hughes is cut throat enough to pull off subsequent moves to bolster previous ones.
I also think that Hughes is persuasive enough to attract certain players Bergevin would not have been able to attract.
The recent signing of Caufield and new hook, along with the signing of each, last year, also convince me that Hughes has a grasp of what it takes to build a team within Cap constraints.
Things, IMO, look better than during the past regime.
For starters, Hughes is banking on youth and the draft, something Bergevin claimed he wanted to do, but never did.
That's a big enough difference for me to give Hughes bait more leeway before biting his head off.
