Fact he couldn't find a way to trade Stepan tells me he's completely incompetent. This was not a hard deal to make. He's obviously in over his head and can't make deals.
I think you need to step back and let things play out before you start this thread. I will be watching two things over the next 7-10 days. 1. Gorton better not let Lindberg get away. 2. Stepan cannot be on this roster come July 1. I have a lot of faith in Gorton, but that can change quickly if he fails on either of those two objectives. On the Stepan front, according to multiple tweets there is serious interest in Stepan. Unless that interest equals interested but not willing to make a good legit offer, Gorton needs to pull the trigger. He cannot afford to overplay his hand and say top pair RD or bust. You can take a good legit offer for Stepan that brings talent back, and then still resign Smith and sign Shatt to complete the D, or maybe flip the Stepan return pieces for a top level dman. We'd have a lot of payroll flexibility if we move Stepan with Girardi gone and Klein retiring. Gorton cannot get greedy with Stepan and let him get to July 1 here. Gorton is under pressure right now and needs to produce. He did a real solid job last summer getting younger and making some good fringe moves like Holden and Grabner. He got off to a good start by buying out Girardi. Now he needs to get work done over the next week or so.
Only way to explain his incompetence is if he already has a deal in place with Vegas to prevent losing players. Holding onto Stepan longer as June closes in when his NMC kicks in, will only lesson his value.
Still an outside shot he can do something with Staal but we may have to live with him one more year and the term is less to deal off. He seems to realize he was below average so maybe he comes back with a good year. I think we will see something get done with Stepan as the NMC will scare Gorton to doing something. It will leave a gap at C for us though, even if Lindberg somehow stays. Maybe Nieves can emerge on the 4th line and they sign someone like King. Perhaps Jensen can turn into something.
