Having had some time to digest the talk about this, I note that there’s a lot of post-hoc rationalization that Phaneuf not living up to expectations blah bah not a good guy in the dressing room blah.
While it’s possible he’s a dick (he is certainly prickly with REPORTERS, which means nothing, and you have to filter that out) I think what we have here is some Gary Carter Syndrome; the propensity of people to blame a team’s problems on one of its best players (In this case second best player, as Jarome Iginla is a God, but close enough.) For whatever reason, people have a way of seeing a disappointing team and pinning the blame on one of the guys who actually helps the team, rather than asking if maybe the failure of Erik Nystrom to score ten freakin’ points all year has more to do with their problems than Dion Phaneuf’s inability to be Bobby Orr, or Olli Jokinen’s generally horrible play, granting that apparently they’re trying to dump him, too.
The richest comment Sutter has made about this situation is saying that he doesn’t think “it’s a good idea to have 4 or 5 guys with big contracts”. Oh really? Who the crap signed those guys to those contracts? Was it you? Oh yes, it was.
Incidentally, the Jokinen deal is apparently on hold because one of the New York players doesn’t want to drop his no trade clause (Kotalik, I think, thank god I don’t want that guy).
You’re right, the rationale does seem to be that Phaneuf was a cancer and he needed to leave Calgary but why on earth do you trade him to Toronto for basically noone (okay, Hagman is alright and White isn’t too bad…apparently white isn’t bad at puck movement which is something Dion never did very well). Still, there was talk a year ago that Dion would be a perennial Norris candidate and I don’t see White ever getting there. This trade reminds me of the Raptors Vince Carter trade…I talked myself into that trade at the time but I won’t make that mistake this time.
Right now I’m just getting Gary Leeman/Doug Gilmore flashbacks. That trade really hurt in both the long and short run.
The thing is, I’m not really worried about the Flames defense, it’s really just the principle of the thing.