At the top of the league in scoring & no playoffs???

[millbank]

coup de baton

[carpandean]

My point was that I would rather have Briere than Roy, at least for this year, while I interpreted your post to mean the opposite -- hence the "although" -- ie I agreed with everything in your post except the preference for Roy over Briere.

Ah, ok. I took this:

I agree with almost everything you said in this post, although I wouldn't trade Briere for Roy for this season (not sure about long term).

to mean you wouldn't take a trade to switch them, since we have Roy (thus, any trade between them would mean Briere coming here and Roy going there.) You were speaking in a hypothetical world where we kept Briere and you wouldn't take Roy instead this season. Roy has been one of our best players this year, so I'm not sure that I'd give him up even if they were to switch back at the end of this season. I am sure how would feel about long term: Roy any day of the week and twice on Sundays.

 

As for the timing -- my point was that when Drury said no in the fall of 2006, that was when they should have immediately turned to Briere -- because they should have decided that under no circumstances were they going to risk losing both captains. And I actually meant $35 million for 6 years, so I think we are pretty far apart on what we think Briere is worth.

 

I know there are plenty of posters here (probably a majority) who disagree with me on Briere's worth, but I say again: if we had him this year, we'd be in the playoffs -- and probably top 4 in the conference. This team isn't far off. It needs a good defenseman, a good center, and most of all, leadership and mental toughness. Feel free to disagree, but I think Briere gave us 3 out of those 4 missing qualities. He was clutch.

 

Oh, well. This is the definition of crying over spilled milk, so we might as well move on.

Yeah, we'll have to agree to disagree on Briere's worth. I'd pay that much for a guy with what you listed and some defensive responsibility, but not Danny. I agree with your list, I think he fills those three but not as well as others could and this team won't be great until we fix the first one on your list. Dropping Kalinin, bringing up Sekera and Weber, and demoting or trading Tallydman will be a good start.

 

Anyway, as you said, we can't change last summer anyway, so let's look forward. Your short list is spot on. We need a new center and a new defensemen, through which we can hopefully bring in some leadership and mental anchoring (toughness will have to be brought out of the rest of the players, too). Hopefully this season, with all of its adversity, will help build the young players on this team.