Edited Sep. 14, 2022 at 2:35 a.m.
Quoting: dannibalcorpse
-It makes no sense for Montreal to retain only $550K on Anderson's deal for 4 years - either they retain enough to make Anderson a more attractive asset, or the Islander skip the retention and lower the overall acquisition cost. Josh Anderson at 4x$4.95M isn't all that much more valuable than Josh Anderson at 4x$5.5M.
-It makes less sense for the Islanders to give up a 26 year old Anthony Beauvillier with one year left on his deal to get a 29 year old Josh Anderson with 4 years left on his deal. It doesn't matter if Lou "likes these types of players", he's also not an idiot who would give up assets to get Additional Anders Lee. Beau and Anderson have scored at very similar rates in their careers to date (93 G in 408 GP for Beau, 101 in 388 GP for Anderson) with the big difference for me being that Beau is a better playmaker, and that he does better work on the power play (5-6-11 last year in 128 PP minutes playing primarily with Zach Parise/Josh Bailey/Kyle Palmieri/JG Pageau vs. 2-1-3 in 146 PP minutes playing primarily with Cole Caufield/Nick Suzuki/Christian Dvorak/Ryan Poehling).
-Matt Martin makes $1.5M next season, so paying a 4th rounder to shed his contract when you could just bury it for ~$350K in Bridgeport is a waste of an asset.
-Signings-wise, giving 6x$7.5M to Vladimir Tarasenko for his age-32 through -37 seasons is worse than the Kadri deal. At least Nazem knows how to play defense.
-Scott Mayfield isn't signing that cheap again. He gave the Isles a hometown discount on the 5x$1.45M he's playing out now, I can't see him signing for anything less than $3M.
-Jaro Halak will be 38 years old in 2023; in his last 2 seasons he's put up a .904 SV% with a 2.70 GAA. I'd like to think there are better backup goalie options available next summer; hell, I'm sure Lou will be able to convince Semyon Varlamov to stick around cheap.
You've also built a 20-man roster with no cap space, featuring: Anders Lee (33, recent full ACL tear), Vladimir Tarasenko (31, missed 93 out of a possible 127 games in 2019-20/20-21 with a major shoulder surgery), Josh Bailey (34), Brock Nelson (32), JG Pageau (31), Kyle Palmieri (32), Casey Cizikas (32), Cal Clutterbuck (36), and Jaro Halak (38). I'm sure this is not a problem at all, NHL players over 30 are notorious for never missing a game or two with nagging injuries.
Oh I’m pretty sure the Isles would love to have Anderson at 5.5. I only did the retention so that the trade was possible, otherwise they can’t afford him, but you’re probably right, no retention at all makes more sense. He’s also not 29, he just turned 28 this spring. His deal only brings him to 32. Not bad at all if you value what he brings and the type of style he plays, which we know Lou does, and tons of GM’s do. Friedman specifically said the Canadiens will get a very good return for him. As for as the age difference between he and Beauvillier, I truly don’t think Lou cares. He’s in win now mode, he’ll do whatever he thinks makes him team better now.
You just can’t bring up age as a legitimate argument on any Lou built team. Guys had the oldest roster in the league for like 5 years now.. I think we can assume he’s not going to all of a sudden change and go for a youth movement.. or even care to get younger at all. I could totally see him giving Tarasenko that deal. Fits his MO
You have me on the Mayfield thing. I honestly didn’t know that, I guess they’ll sign a depth player in free agency for cheap then.
I know some of what your saying are your personal feelings. I’m not making this from my perspective. I rarely if ever consider what I would do in any of these armchair GM’s. I do what I think the GM of said team might do. People have a tough time separating how they feel about a player and how a GM might feel about a player.
I mean Gudbransson just got 4 mill a season.. Jack Johnson was still playing in the nhl last year.. won a cup. There are a ton of players fans think are bad that GM’s for whatever reason love. A lot of times it ends up being a mistake, but those bad trades/signings happen every year. Im not saying I make the perfect armchair GM’s, I’m just trying to be realistic. I like doing it with teams I don’t know a ton about. You’re respectful and let me know some of the issues with it and I thank you for that.