Edited Mar. 12 at 11:25 a.m.
Quoting: Claesson4Norris
It's easy to point at the big, high profile Ls and laugh. The Duchene trades, the Stone debacle, the Boucher pick, the DeBrincat mess. But nearly as bad is the sheer amount of quality depth Ottawa had and let go. Like, imagine how much better a position Ottawa could be in if they had held on to guys like Daccord, DeMelo, Amadio etc. Hell, even a guy like Filip Chlapik I'm still convinced, was and is a better player than like 95% of the guys Ottawa has trotted out in the bottom six since he left.
Yet, you're only talking about a portion of Dorion's mismanagement
What about the 1st we're going to lose with the Dadonov debacle?
What about trading Dylan DeMelo for a freaking 3rd round pick when he was the ideal partner for Thomas Chabot? But it was just a few months after acquiring the Nikita Elite Zaitsev so no need for DeMelo! The Zaitsev deal ended up as another horrible trade, despite Connor Brown attempts to make it a contest.
What about giving up a 2nd for Derek Stepan? Think about how much it cost to move a 6.5 cap hit for a bottom-6 player
Or the beloved first Dorion trade? Mika Zibanejad and a 2nd for 29 y/o Brassard
You're talking about Chlapik... They decided to waive Filip Chlapik and Rudolfs Balcers instead of Cedric Paquette, Artem Anisimov or Alex Galchenyuk. I mean, Balcers and Chlapik didn't destroy the NHL but Balcers was a solid 2-way 3rd line winger for 2 years before injuries kinda ruined him but both are having nice success in Europe. You waive 2 of the 3 guys I mentioned and give the young players a chance. This was ridiculous and showed to me their pro scouting ability
And all the picks traded to acquire guys like Gudbranson, Josh Brown, etc when you could have been PAID to take on contracts and probably end up with better players.
Dorion's tenure was just a continuous nightmare. It was not as easy during the firesale because that's the easiest job in the world : sell your players for the most you can get (look at the returns for Duchene and Stone lol) and draft HIGH
Even regarding that very EASY job, Dorion screwed up on most of it. Really, there's 5 moves that ended up being very beneficial :
- Karlsson's return
- Pageau's return
- Artem Zub
- Claude Giroux
- Batherson's contract
The rest is pretty much HORRIBLE