Scott Burnside grades the moves from yesterday, and I have to say that I find some of his assertions quite difficult to understand:
Burnside’s 3rd best move: Flyers re-sign Michael Leighton and Braydon Coburn; acquire Jody Shelley and Andrej Meszaros.
I don't see how these are good moves!
- The Flyers gave a multi-year contract to a goon, ostensibly because he scored 2 of his 16 career goals (in 538 games) against Philly in the last two games of the season. Surely an adequate goon could have been obtained for the NHL minimum – and sent up and down to the minors to save money.
- There were a lot of defensemen with actual defensive skills available for the same price as Meszaros
Michael Leighton is simply not a good goaltender. When it became clear that his price tag was above the NHL minimum, Philly should have let him walk. And even though they have Leighton and Boucher under contract, they're still looking to sign another goalie.
10th best/4th worst move: Sharks sign Antero Niittymaki. Burnside doesn’t like this deal because Niittymaki lacks playoff experience and has never been viewed as a starter.
- On their face, these claims make no sense. Didn’t Craig Anderson prove that there are quality goaltenders available for cheap? Didn’t Michael Leighton – who was cut by Carolina mid-season – prove that a team can go deep in the playoffs not only with a guy who has no playoff experience, but also with a goalie who’s not actually any good?
- The irony is that when I look through Burnside’s chat from three days ago, he says:
“the Red Wings and Flyers (to a lesser degree obviously) have shown you can have success in the playoffs without committing a vast amount of resources to goaltending. There is a glut of netminders on the market so Doug Wilson should be able to get an adequate replacement at a fraction of Nabokov’s cost.”
So why the change of heart?
Burnside’s 3rd-worst move: Flames sign Alex Tanguay
To quote Burnside:
"How…do you explain Tanguay's one-year deal worth $1.7 million and the no-trade clause that came with it? Who …gives a no-trade clause to a "sniper" with a combined 44 goals in the past three seasons?"
There's zero consistency in the analysis here – Philly signing a 3rd-string goalie for $3M over two years is good; as is signing a goon for $2M over two, even though we know both of those guys have a career-long track record of sucking. But a one-year deal for roughly the same money for a guy who might recover his established offensive skills is an unacceptable risk? Of all the deals that were done yesterday, Tanguay's actually has the highest upside value, which is not something you usually find on UFA day.
