Quenneville is a great coach and the Hawks are great at replacing the higher salary players they allow to walk come free agency. I was glad to see them bury those cheap-shotting Tampa clowns.
What most here are also forgetting is the reason the Hawks gave up that first rounder was not because they thought Vermette would be the missing piece in the playoffs which he wasn't. They gave it up because Kane was out about 2 months with an injury. In those regular season games Vermette was scratched, had 0 G, 3 A in 19 games. They didn't get back anywhere close to the value they expected. Not in the playoffs either when the guy played 10 minutes a game in the finals. Right now on this board we have about 5 to 8 posters that think 1st and 2nd round picks don't matter when you are going for it. That's an idiotic mentality. The Hawks keep winning and their farm is still stocked. The next guy up for them contributing will be Hartman. Teravainen was a first round pick just 2 years ago. With the idiotic thinking on this board, the Hawks wouldn't have had a pick to draft him.
Who cares. It is the 30th pick and they won a cup...who cares. When you were on board with all the trades Sather made dealing late 1st round picks did you think they didn't matter dump??? OF COURSE NOT....but you were still on board and liked all those trades at the time. WHY??? Because you understand while those picks mean something of course, they are not the end all be all. We are not talking about top 5 or top 10 or top 15 picks even. Maybe you get a solid NHL player there, and maybe you don't, and the odds of you getting anything more than a solid NHL player are VERY SLIM. Odds are greater you don't get an NHL player there than one who is more than a solid type player. That is why you liked all the trades when Sather made them, you understood that. We all understood that. That doesn't mean the picks are useless or we should throw them away, but we also need to keep things in perspective here. YES they have good value, but they are not the end all be all when you pick that late in the 1st. We really need to stop with the nonsense already. It is over and done with. The constant living in the past and bickering over late 1st round picks we dealt over the past few years needs to stop, it is getting old now. When those deals were made pretty much all of us were on board, and even if we weren't who cares since the deals happened and we cannot go back in time and change them now. So I was on board, you were on board dump, most were on board with the deals when made. Is what it is at this point. We all need to move on, me included.
Vermette also won 73% of his faceoffs, scored two GAME WINNING GOALS IN THE FINALS, helped them win a Cup, and their coach actually benched him which he used as motovation to step up his game and play better. Is he THE reason they won? Heck no. Did he contribute to their winning? Heck yes. He was a + player for them, and scored goals at timely times for them. But dump, you want to sit here and worry about them losing the 30th pick when they won the Cup instead. That 30th pick can be signed as a FA when they need someone. Their issue is the cap. They knew they needed to win NOW, and they made a move when Kane went down to get better. Enough is enough dump. You're always saying our farm is loaded, these writers are hacks, prospect A is going to be a 50 point guy. Now we lost and you're over here coming to reality that, the farm is NOT loaded, the writers aren't hacks they were just not homers, and not every prospect is going to pan out. Welcome to the real world. Now just admit the fact that you've said these things and we can all move on and stop discussing the Vermette thing. We bring it up because of your excuses and unwillingness to admit your mistakes and errors and instead just ignore it.
Considering the ultimate goal is to win the Stanley Cup (not have a stocked farm system) and considering Vermette scored two (2) game winning goals in the Stanley Cup Finals, I imagine every single hockey analyst would grade that trade as a success. Giving up the 30th pick in this year's draft and one single prospect for a Stanley Cup it should be no debate. Anyone on here would have thrown in one of their kidneys for the Rangers to have made the same trade if it would've resulted in a Cup. Sure, draft picks are important but it's more likely that the 30th pick in this year's draft won't be scoring two game winning goals in the Stanley Cup Finals in his career, let alone in the same year. Hawks win the cup thanks to two huge goals by Vermette = successful trade.
I don't think there's anything left to say on the matter. They won the cup so any move they made is successful. What the hell is the goal of any season?
