Quoting: buffbry
I don't know how any red wings fan can say no to this deal for farabee. Look what Devin toews did for avs and it costs them 2 2nds. Those 2 2nds in the Grand scheme mean nothing and farabee is better then zadina. This is a no brainer if flyers would do this, which they wouldn't
Farabee is better than Zadina but he's not better than Bertuzzi, Vrána, or Raymond. Farabee is comparable to Fabbri in scoring which would put him around 4th to 5th among our wingers. Farabee is a left shooter just as Bert, Kuba, Filip, and Robby, the only right shooter we have in the top-6 is Raymond. Farabee has a salary of $5 million.
With Berggren (for sure) and Söderblom (possibly) on the right wing next season the question becomes where would Farabee play? Berggren is having a great year in GR and Söderblom is having a massive breakout year in the SHL.
Then add together what we're giving up. We're likely to give up a couple of 3rd round picks to fix our left side defense. With Oesterle being the only LD under contract traded away here Yzerman absolutely has to get two new veterans, he's not going to run four rookies on LD. If this trade is made we will be giving up four top-3 round picks this season.
Those two 2nd round picks can be put to better use by patching holes that are much much bigger than a middle-6 winger spot. Like moving up in the draft to get a centre that we need way more than a winger or by offer-sheeting someone that is just as good as Farabee for $4.1 million which would cost us only one 2nd round pick (Dylan Strome, Jason Robertson, Adrian Kempe, Mangiapane, Jesse Puljujärvi).
A trade cannot be evaluated out of context. What players do we have at the position? What is coming up through the prospect pool? What are our biggest needs that should be fixed first? If there's a choice, and it could very well come to that, between getting the centre we want in the draft and doing this trade then this trade shouldn't be done. Getting a winger that isn't going to be on the top line simply isn't that important at this point in the rebuild. Getting us a working LD and a bona fide top-2 centre is much much more important.