I think I’m done crying … congrats Pens, the better team won … oh, damn, looks like I’m not done crying …
As predicted, Burns is a distant third behind Karlsson and Doughty. There’s no way that Doughty’s defensive play was worth 30 more goals than Karlsson’s this season. Not even close.
Burns I could take losing to, but Doughty just got a lifetime achievement award here.
Anybody actually watch the NHL awards? I recorded and fast forwarded thru a lot. Heck, a presenter just has to read the nominees (sometimes they do that for them) and announce the winner. Michael Keaton was horrible announcing the Hart.
The 2016-17 schedules were released earlier this week. The Caps will finally get to see a Stanley Cup banner raised.
Subban to Nashville for Weber? There’s something rotten in Denmark, er Montreal. What the hell? Is there some bad blood between Bergevin and Subban that I’m unaware of?
And the Oilers trade Hall. I did not see that coming.
Yeah, that’s a bad trade. Shea Weber is one hell of a defenceman, but he’s 31 and Subban is 28. This is not going to end well for the Habs.
I think that the reasoning behind the trade from Montreal’s side looks like this:
- Our window as Cup contender is going to close in the next couple of years
- Weber will be a better defenceman than Subban for the next couple of years
But given how bad they were with Price out, I find the prospect of them being legitimate contenders at all laughable, and I’m pretty dubious about Weber being better than Subban now.
The trade has some really awful potential cap problems for Nashville, though. The short version is, to date Weber’s contract has paid him $24-million more than his total cap hit. If he retires before his contract ends (at age 40!), then that $24-million is divided by the number of years left on his contract and counted against Nashville’s cap. Still, it’s a fantastic deal for Nashville – they can deal with the cap problems if they appear (and worst case scenario, they could always acquire Weber’s contract, keep him on the active roster but don’t play him, and pay out his contract rather than taking the cap penalty).
Subban is 27, just to add a year of insult to injury. (Just turned 27 in May.)
From the information available to us this is the most stupid trade I can remember a hockey team making, and one of the most stupid trades in any sport I’ve ever heard of. Not for the life of me can I understand why you would trade a 27-year-old guy for a 31-year-old guy, both on huge contracts, when both the statistical indicators AND a plain-eye viewing of the two men playing tells you the 27-year-old is better. I would not have traded Subban for Weber if Nashville had thrown in a first round draft pick. It is absolutely nuts.
The conclusion, therefore, is that one of three things is true;
- Montreal’s management simply doesn’t like Subban. We know Therrien doesn’t like puck-moving defencemen, and in Weber he gets a defenceman who is terrible at moving the puck so he’s got what he wanted.
- There is something about Subban personally that they are hiding, like he’s got a drug problem or he murdered a guy in a bar or something.
- Gary Carter Disease.
#1 is I think the likeliest reason, and #2 seems very unlikely or we’d have heard something. There is no source defending this deal that I can find, saying something like “there’s good reason behind the curtain for this” the way it usually is with such things. There are a THOUSAND sources indicating that Bergevin and Therrien simply didn’t like Subban because he’s not their kind of guy; too flamboyant, too aggressive on the ice, too black (yes, it’s part of it) and too popular.
But I think there’s an element of #3, Gary Carter Disease, which I think Bill James came up with the name for, is the tendency of teams to blame their best players for the team’s failures. The Habs failed last year big time, and PK Subban was the team’s best player once Carey Price was hurt, so Subban is blamed. The propensity to do this is remarkable, and common across all sports; poorly run organizations will start ripping into their All-Stars for not being even greater. They tear intothe 40-goal scorer for not scoring 50, into the wide receiver for pulling in 80 passes instead of 90, for the slugger hitting only 35 homers and not fifty, all the while ignoring that the team has 15 other guys who suck and are the reason they missed the playoffs, but nobody expected anything of them so who cares?
You know how bad this trade looks? It’s worse. Montreal will regret this deal, and regret it bitterly.