Joined: Apr. 2020
Posts: 275
Likes: 110
I woke up this morning pissed off. It is. This whole thing was stupid.
You have to start with the Faulk deal. First, it was totally unnecessary. The brass clearly had enough of Edmundson after the arbitration hearing and wanted to move on. Fine. But WTF man? You trade for and extend a 3rd pairing D-man at $6.5 AAV? Army handcuffed himself right out of the gate with no reason to. And Pietrengelo took it for what it likely was: a leverage play and a failsafe if he didn't get re-signed. It was a jab in the ribs to him. Right out of the gate before the year even started Army sending a shot across the bow for no reason.
Plenty of this is Pietrangelo too. How sincere were his public comments about wanting to stay? Because at the end of the day (like I said above) it appeared to me that Armstrong was willing to get up into the $8 AAV range and offer some NMC protection, some signing bonus and the 8th year on the deal and Petro said no. Did Petro not really want to stay that badly? Did the Faulk situation already burn that bridge? Was Petro's agent just driving the ship and he wouldn't take anything less than the full NMC and full signing bonus money?
Here's what I know: Alex Pietrangelo is an elite defenseman in this league. He's stayed healthy, he can play every situation and he's a top 5 defenseman who logs a ton of minutes. Every metric I've seen says it can be expected he'll stay elite for the next three years (coincidentally probably our window to win again with the rest of this roster). Probably start to decline after that. You keep your elite players. Army f***ed this up. Arguably, the Faulk trade and extension was the end of it. You can make that argument. Army handcuffed himself from offering more money, and it also alienated Petro immediately. Then, not to his credit, Petro played hardball right back, was totally inflexible and that was that.
You keep your elite players. All of this could have been avoided. I don't think it's any question this team is worse today than it was a week ago. Army would apparently rather have 2-3 average or above average D-men than 1 slightly overpaid elite stud. Parayko can't defend all by himself.
Maybe I'm putting too much weight on the Faulk trade and extension. But I don't think I am.
Vegas immediately becomes top 2 in the NHL with Tampa, and arguably the favorite to win the cup. The blues window might be closed. I hope it isn't. But it might be.