Confirmed with Link: Walman and a 2nd Round Pick traded to SJ

[OldnotDeadWings]

Walman lost his first-pair role and was a healthy scratch late in the season, do people think other GMs didn't notice? That no pro scouts with a positive evaluation of Walman went to their boss and recommended he look into it, that in their view Walman could help them? If GMs thought the same way that many fans here seem to think about Walman's ability, wouldn't at least one of them have approached SY during the 10 weeks from the end of the regular season to Draft week to find out what it would take to acquire him? SY is gonna say, "Nah, I'd rather give YOU a second-rounder Biff. How does that sound?" Do fans think there is some kind of mandatory trade protocol, that the GM who would like to add a player has to wait for an invitation to make an offer? If SY screwed up his evaluation of Walman, then so did every other GM in the league who whiffed on a chance to improve his defense for nothing more than FC or even gain a late-round pick.

The scenario of suddenly needing more Cap space to add a player makes no sense either when SY had the entire off-season to go over the Cap. He could have traded Maatta almost any time if necessary. Could he have retained on Walman and got something? Maybe, but two years' retention might get in the way of being able to move other guys during those two years. It's not just the potential Cap dumps involved, it's the guys with trade value that might need 10-20 per cent retained to fit into the other team's Cap, or to improve the value of the return.

As much as some fans might want to think Walman had value -- and of course he had some -- he didn't have enough for the two-year pricetag and the strings attached. If the dressing room is done with him, a string becomes a hangman's noose. One of those strings may be the cause of Walman being a healthy scratch now. One of them might have been why the Blues gave up on him in the first place. It doesn't really matter, something in addition to Walman not being as good as fan perception probably played a part in both wanting to get rid of him and what IMO was a total lack of interest from other teams. Ottawa and St. Louis paid the same Draft pick this summer to move similarly-priced players they didn't want, but I guess that's just a coincidence rather than one of the established costs of doing business.

 

[PullHard]

Are we going to react as equally negatively against Walman now that he’s been scratched? How does this work

 

[odin1981]

For better or worse, Yzerman is big on personality and once he doesn't like you, you're out the door. Walman did something that made Yzerman dislike him. A few guys on the team- Larkin- seem to have probably felt similarly to Stevie Y. At least a few bits of evidence point to it being related to Walman struggling to come back from injury and the team feeling that he could have tried harder, wasn't as injured as he made out to be, and/or didn't work through the pain well enough when in the lineup. Perhaps he had too much fun on vacation in Tampa too. Perhaps there's something totally unrelated that we never even got word of- the proverbial zamboni trough piss.

My personal opinion is that this was ridiculously stupid regardless. We had a ton of bad defenseman to get rid of, and we chose one of the good ones. We moved him at a time when he had no value and in an apparent panic. If we did this that fast because we can't tolerate having someone we don't like on the team dress for us, I think that's a little immature, but I do understand how important team buy-in can be. If someday we're in the playoffs and we're watching every guy give every ounce of their being to will the team to victory, that will be a nice consequence of this mentality.

The more worrying notion is that perhaps this was done to free up cap space in a desperate gamble to acquire Jacob Trouba. He's another washed up echo of his former self that we should know would be an immediate disaster on our blue line in anything more than a third pairing role (like every defenseman we sign/trade for). That notion terrifies me most of all as it indicates this "bring in bad defenseman" strategy isn't the "there's no sense paying assets to bring in good defenseman before the kids are ready, so we'll acquire stop gaps from the bargain bin" strategy that we delude ourselves into believing it is. Trying to bring in Trouba implies that Steve Yzerman watches Jeff Petry, Ben Chiarot, Justin Holl, and Jacob Trouba play defense and says to himself "oh yeah, I want more of that on my team." If so, this team is doomed unless our prospects just turn out to be so good that we never acquire pro scouted defenseman in the Yzerman era. It doesn't matter how much buy-in you get from garbage players. They're going to give you garbage results.

Regardless, the final result is that we have a terrible defense having lost our second best defender. Edvinsson has fortunately managed to succeed being thrust immediately into a top pairing role with some of the hardest minutes in the league. Unfortunately, Petry and Chiarot on the second pairing together have not faired nearly as well.

The only problem is the bad d men have absolutely no value. No one wants them. The only realistic way of unloading one of them is at the trade deadline if one team gets creamed by injuries and needs a 6/7 for emergency purposes so that limits it to bad ones on 1 year remaining.

 

[deca guard]

but all the arrogant fools continue to disrespect yzermans work while insisting they know more about running a hockey team

 

[Steve Yzerlland]

but all the arrogant fools continue to disrespect yzermans work while insisting they know more about running a hockey team

You can love Yzerman and still agree this trade was awful. And losing Ghost was terrible as well.

 

[GarlicbreadTB]

You can love Yzerman and still agree this trade was awful. And losing Ghost was terrible as well.

Letting go of Ghost wasn't necessarily bad. Now replacing him with Gustafsson was the mistake.