Two years later: Revisiting the Kotkaniemi - Dvorak swap

[Tuggy]

Where's the 3rd option? I want the draft picks and don't want Dvorak.

Yes, this is my choice.

 

[1909]

I would had prefer Bergevin to take his time before trading the Carolina pick to Arizona for Dvorak..... But he had only Suzuki and Evans as NHL caliber centermen when that happened.

 

[jiboy]

Letting KK go was the right move , damage was done and theres no way he would sign that extension with us

Having him let reach this point was the big mistake wich goes into deeper problems

Probably this debacle helped Bergevin get fired so its not that bad I guess

Dvorak has been a letdown but hes still a decent nhl player , guy just has no pulse and is the vanilla of vanilla players

 

[LaP]

We all thought Dvorak was a better player than he really was.

It's called the Arizona effect. When you play a significant role for a horrible team, fans ignore the possibility that the player may have played a significant role in that teams suckage

I did not. I knew Dvorak very well.

 

[1909]

No error at the draft (THatchuk) = no KK around and no Dvorak to acquire later.

 

[McGees]

It was a lose lose but we made it a double lose by trading for Dvo.
Shoulda let kk walk and kept pick/traded for someone else.
Now we gotta trade Dvo and will be lucky to get a 2nd.

 

[Habano]

Wasn't happy then and not happy now with that move. I got a lot of flack for calling Dvo a 30-35 point forward and that is all he has turned out to be. Many people overestimated him.

 

[GrandBison]

If KK is signed, there is an automatic no-trade that kick in for a complete year. Then, you have to qualify or offer ridiculous terms like Carolina did. It was not a mistake to let him go. But to think you then need Dvorak to compete, that was a complete fail.

 

[Miller Time]

The lingering emotional takes about JKO still persist...

23 yrs old
Regular season: 319 GP - 52g 134pts
Playoffs: 58GP 12g 21pts

Total 377 GP - 64G 155PTS (.41ppg, 48% FO efficiency)

Contract - 7yrs 4.8M

22.5 yrs old
Regular season: 210 GP - 33g 97pts
Playoffs: 9 GP - 1G 6pts

Total 219 GP - 34g 103 pts (.47ppg, 35% FO efficiency)

Contract - 3 yrs 3.36M
------------------

JKO v. Dach.

Doubt any fan would bat an eyelash at paying Dach 1.5M more to keep him under 5M for 4 extra years.

JKO would be a fantastic asset to have. Better than the picks we got for him & infinitely better than Dvorak.

Remove the emotional baggage or Tkachuk envy (notice how no one brings up Byram, Cozens, Seider or Caufield when assessing Dach... Draft spot and later picks being better magically fade away when a trade makes it easy to leave that story behind) and it's pretty obvious that JKO is a great asset on a good contract that has a lot of potential to be an absolute steal sooner than later. Like Dach (who is 6 months younger), the best is yet to come & the present is already pretty good.

Dvo, on the other hand, has been diminishing in value with every passing game since we made that trade. Pro scouting dropped the ball or MB rushed to fix his self-created mess... Either way, poor asset management on our end.

 

[Spearmint Rhino]

KK should never have been scratched in the playoffs for the ghost of Eric Staal and he wouldn’t have signed the offer sheet. Having said that I wanted to match at the time and never wanted DVo

 

[rickthegoon]

he should have let KK go and kept the pick

And sign Danault for that matter

I would had prefer Bergevin to take his time before trading the Carolina pick to Arizona for Dvorak..... But he had only Suzuki and Evans as NHL caliber centermen when that happened.

He only had Suzuki and Evans by his own fault. So in love with burntwout Gallagher that overpaid him at the same time playing hard ball with Danault.
All that debacle after Bergevin tried to pull a move on Aho.
Genuine catastrophic chain of event that would and should never happen.

 

[CoopersFalls]

I didn't loathe the trade at the time but it's proved to be a terrible deal.

Going to the Finals that year really screwed up management's thinking. Caused them to try and "extend the window" that wasn't really even open.

 

[Paddyjack]

In that Cup run there was a question on the board "would you rather win a Cup (which means keeping Bergevin) or lose and kick him out?" I remember a lot of people did not understand this question, "eh, a Cup is Cup"... But when you think about this Cup run (that we lost), the consequences were huge. We kept MB, he then made an 3-year contract extension to Stupid Ducharme (which according to Gervais was not well received by the players), and then let Danault walk (which may have been helped by said contract to stupid coach, who knows...), contract to to Gally, can't sign KK (again, the coach?), get Dvo....etc

That Cup run was fun, but the consequences were downhill fast

 

[Wats]

Hated the trade, wish we matched or kept the picks.

 

[Jee]

I was okay with the trade, although a bit pricey, Bergevin had his hands tied. Dvorak needs to step up big time.

 

[Frank Drebin]

I don't get a ton right so I'm going to stomp that told ya so button on this one.

We absolutely positively should have matched the offer sheet. And I got roasted for saying so lol.

You'll still get roasted today.

KK at 5m ( best case scenario, possible that he left as a ufa) and Romanov

Vs

Dach at 3.3

 

[sandviper]

Two years ago, Kotkaniemi signed a 6.1 million dollar contract and then an 8x4.85 million dollar contract with the Canes. The Habs got a 1st and 2nd rounder. Kotkaniemi has produced 42 points in 148 games.

Dvorak was the acquired for a first and second. He's produced 61 points in 117 games and is being paid 4.45 million this year and next.

Think we should had kept KK and out second but the correct option would had been to just keep the compensation. Getting Dvorak was a classic panic move.

My thought on keeping Kotkaniemi was given Phil left, he pretty much would had locked into a middle-6 spot. I’d hesitate to say 2C was his because of the potato we had behind the bench. If KK continued to suck, well, we could get rid of him later And take the L.

 

[Takeru]

In that Cup run there was a question on the board "would you rather win a Cup (which means keeping Bergevin) or lose and kick him out?" I remember a lot of people did not understand this question, "eh, a Cup is Cup"... But when you think about this Cup run (that we lost), the consequences were huge. We kept MB, he then made an 3-year contract extension to Stupid Ducharme (which according to Gervais was not well received by the players), and then let Danault walk (which may have been helped by said contract to stupid coach, who knows...), contract to to Gally, can't sign KK (again, the coach?), get Dvo....etc

That Cup run was fun, but the consequences were downhill fast

I mean, for as much as things went downhill, having a cup to show for it would alleviate the burden significantly.

The debate was essentially moot though as there was no way we were ever winning the cup with that roster. It's a miracle we even made it that far.

The choice was more between making it far and losing or losing earlier.
The consequences would likely have been far less detrimental had we lost earlier during that post-season.

I did enjoy the run mind you, but it didn't feel as the culmination of a thorough process, so expectations remained low throughout.

 

[BaseballCoach]

To recap that dreadful summer:

1. Leaving Kotkaniemi unsigned and vulnerable to an offer sheet was a plain stupid; especially with a foreseeable retaliation from Carolina after the Aho debacle.

2. Using Carolina’s compensation to acquired Dvorak was a ridiculous panic move.

3. In any event, if Bergevin didn’t see a future for Kotkaniemi with the Habs, a top-6 C spot was thus available and he should have offered it to Danault at 5.5M instead of wasting 6.5M on Gallagher for his past deeds.

In summary, the optimal track for the Habs knowing Kotkaniemi was to be OS’ed would have been to keep Danault and the compensation picks instead of Dvorak/Gallagher.

And get a first for Gallagher and get a first for Tatar.

 

[FerrisRox]

It's kind of hilarious to read a thread full of people simultaneously saying that the Canadiens should have matched that absurd contract for Kotkaniemi while simultaneously saying that Bergevin was a terrible General Manager.

Had he matched that contract it would have been the single stupidest thing he'd ever done.

Are the Bergevin haters so blinded by their dislike for that man that they have to pretend everything he did was wrong?

Nobody in their right mind thinks giving Kotka that contract was the right move, yet over 70 percent of the people here think that was the route to go?

Really?

It's bad enough that people are pretending that Dvorak is some terrible player that couldn't be given away - which is absurd - but now we have to also pretend that not handing Kotka the keys to the vault was a mistake?

This place in insane.

 

[Kimota]

I mean I understand MB's panic given that he went from having Danault and KK to having none of them. We cannot understand what it is to be in that position. Esp. since we just had gone to the cup that very year and he thought we had a competitive team still so he wanted to keep the gravy train going. So he was desperate to get any decent centerman on the market. Dvorak was probably the only one available, really.

Of course the right decision would have been to keep the picks. But it's very morning quarterbacking.

 

[rve24]

I don't connect the dots the way the OP intended. To me separate moves.
Match on KK.....nope
In hindsight, trade for DVO......nope

 

[GrandBison]

It's kind of hilarious to read a thread full of people simultaneously saying that the Canadiens should have matched that absurd contract for Kotkaniemi while simultaneously saying that Bergevin was a terrible General Manager.

Had he matched that contract it would have been the single stupidest thing he'd ever done.

Are the Bergevin haters so blinded by their dislike for that man that they have to pretend everything he did was wrong?

Nobody in their right mind thinks giving Kotka that contract was the right move, yet over 70 percent of the people here think that was the route to go?

Really?

It's bad enough that people are pretending that Dvorak is some terrible player that couldn't be given away - which is absurd - but now we have to also pretend that not handing Kotka the keys to the vault was a mistake?

This place in insane.

You're right, and Dvorak is a 3rd line center signed at a reasonable price. For a team that looks to compete, it makes total sense to give away a first for him... The problem was to see how Weber, Price and Danault were keys in the playoff run and that it would be hard to just make the playoffs without them.

 

[Takeru]

It's kind of hilarious to read a thread full of people simultaneously saying that the Canadiens should have matched that absurd contract for Kotkaniemi while simultaneously saying that Bergevin was a terrible General Manager.

Had he matched that contract it would have been the single stupidest thing he'd ever done.

Are the Bergevin haters so blinded by their dislike for that man that they have to pretend everything he did was wrong?

Nobody in their right mind thinks giving Kotka that contract was the right move, yet over 70 percent of the people here think that was the route to go?

Really?

It's bad enough that people are pretending that Dvorak is some terrible player that couldn't be given away - which is absurd - but now we have to also pretend that not handing Kotka the keys to the vault was a mistake?

This place in insane.

Feels we're not reading the same thread.
Most perspectives generally boils down to:
Should have let KK walk, kept the picks instead of getting Dvo, with the added thought that the situation should've never been allowed to degenerate that far in the first place.

Apart from a few outliers, haven't read that many comments like the one you're describing. Unless you're basing it on the poll, which was lacking the third option I described which might have been the dominant result.

 

[Boss Man Hughes]

I'll never forget the comments said on our boards towards Tkachuk pre draft. Some of them were nasty and they tried to bully others off Tkachuk.

"WJC is a fluke small tournament". Sure, if you are the type to looks at points via Poehling types. With Tkachuk, you just see the confidence and how he shows up in big games. Never underestimate that part.



2017 was horrible for him. I do think they recovered a bit after that but it was too late. When I look at his time, I see waives of good years, bad years, and meh years. He just didn't have the right vision over the long haul. Kept changing his strategy

Tkachuk had questionable upside just like Reinbacher. Maybe they should have taken him. They screwed up KK's development so we will never know if KK was a reasonalble pick.