Berglund on Waivers with Purpose to Terminate His Contract

[Thorner]

8 hours ago, dudacek said:

Berglund's agent didn't submit his list to the Blues. Instead of asking for the list in the spirit of the contract, Armstrong pounced and traded him because of that loophole.

Nothing wrong in terms of the letter of the law. But certainly pretty shady in the way he treated Berglund.

Also shady in the way he treated Botterill, if he led Jason to believe Berglund was fine about coming to Buffalo.

So as far as Botterill knew, Berglund had no list at all? Or was thinking we just weren't on it?

[Curt]

15 minutes ago, Thorny said:

So as far as Botterill knew, Berglund had no list at all? Or was thinking we just weren't on it?

I don’t think anyone here knows.

[triumph_communes]

hhhhh

Edited December 3, 2019 by triumph_communes

[nfreeman]

On 11/30/2019 at 11:28 AM, dudacek said:

I saw two potentially takeaways. Either:

a) a man with legitimate mental health issues made a brave decision to walk away from millions in order to get better.

b) a man with serious entitlement issues made a selfish decision to walk away from his responsibilities and exercised his privilege.

If it was mostly the former, good on him, but you cant blame the Sabres culture any more than if any other health issue arose. If it was mostly the latter, then ***** Berglund.

Also, ***** Berglund’s agent, who had one ***** job, ***** Armstrong for his lack of integrity with Berglund and with Botts, and ***** Terry for his stupid ***** deadline forcing us into a rushed deal for damaged goods.

So I finally sat down and watched the entire segment.  I think it's pretty clear that the situation was as described in alternative (a) in your post.

I completely agree with the bolded.  It was a crappy situation all the way around.

 

On 11/30/2019 at 11:47 AM, ... said:

This had nothing to do with Buffalo. Replace Buffalo with those 19 other teams and Berglund would have been just as miserable. 

This story is about a dude who loved what he had going on, had it all taken away from him, and doing what he had to do to find peace - none of those things reflects on Buffalo.

This.

 

On 11/30/2019 at 12:02 PM, SwampD said:

Nothing he says changes my long standing opinion.

 

On 11/30/2019 at 12:19 PM, SwampD said:

I might agree with this if they were still losing. At the time he left, they were at the top of the NHL standings.

He loved what he had in St. Louis and someone pulled the rug out from underneath him.

It’s perfect that St. Louis won it all last year. It would be even more perfect if the Sabres won it all this year.

Yes I’m bitter. He can suck it.

On 11/30/2019 at 10:24 PM, SwampD said:

Lots of words wasted on a quitter. He can suck it.

JFC. 

This continues to be just an awful take.

What if he'd had cancer or other debilitating illness?  Would you have invited him to "suck it" in that situation?

He had severe depression and was probably pretty close to jumping off a bridge.  Did he need to go through with it to convince you?  Or would he have been "a quitter" then too?

 

On 11/30/2019 at 4:03 PM, woods-racer said:

The whole point is Buffalo didn't screw him over.

Then he screwed Buffalo over, in the same fashion as he got screwed over.

Sabres and their fans are allowed to be just as upset.

Two wrongs never make a right has to be one of your classic Dad-isms you've even used before.

I agree that the Sabres didn't screw him over, and that the Sabres got screwed by what happened -- although I sure would like to know whether JB did his due diligence on this.  If JB knew that Bergy's NTC was invalidated due to the screwup and didn't bother to speak with Bergy about joining the Sabres -- that's a big mistake by JB, especially if, as @Brawndo has posted, JB mis-handled the trade process and was blindsided by TP's refusal to pay the bonus.

I do think though that Bergy didn't intentionally screw the Sabres -- I think he was drowning and needed to go home.

 

On 11/30/2019 at 4:36 PM, Taro T said:

But in the big picture, he actually did the Sabres a favor by opening up 3.5 seasons worth of ~$4MM in cap space.

It isn't his fault that Botterill decided to throw away the 0.5 season's worth of that space.  The Sabres are better off with Johansson and $1MM less of space than they were with Berglund.

This is reasonable, but I think a fully-engaged Bergy would've been a good player and a real asset to the team.

I guess we'll never know.

 

On 11/30/2019 at 10:11 PM, woods-racer said:

How can you not find fault with a guy that takes absolutely no responsibility for his NHL career? It's everyone else's fault that he got traded and not at all his, not at least 50%?

It's his contract, HIS!

The Blue's GM fleeced the Sabres and Berglund. Then they won the Stanley Cup. Not the way I want the Sabres to ever handle any player and I hope that's not the mentality it takes to win it all. But that said, no party is not at fault here.  One just took the low road, all be it contractually correct.

This is also reasonable, especially if, as his agent claimed to SportsNet, that the agent asked him for the list multiple times before the deadline.

However, the agent is still guilty of malpractice IMHO.  If Bergy didn't respond to his requests for the list, the agent should've just re-submitted the prior year's list -- not blown it off entirely.

 

On 12/1/2019 at 7:26 PM, PASabreFan said:

Then he shouldn't have done the interview.

On 12/1/2019 at 8:44 PM, Curt said:

He shouldnt have done the interview if he didn’t want to have in in depth public discussion about his mental health?  How bout we just let him live his life and make his own decisions instead?

I don’t know if Berglund has ever been diagnosed with a mental health issue, but he kind of got screwed over by his agent and GM.  It was something that wasn’t supposed to happen.  He had taken precautions to have control over where he would be.  I wouldn’t be surprised if privately Botterill feels horrible about putting Berglund in a position where he was so terribly unhappy.

Yes -- I don't agree with @PASabreFan here at all.  He doesn't owe anyone a full-color description of how depressed he was.  A media outlet in another country asked for an interview, and he granted it, probably because the NHL did him a lot of good in his life.  He seemed to answer their questions pretty candidly and he probably gave his father, coach, teammates, etc. the go-ahead to do the same.  He certainly didn't hide the fact that he was severely depressed and everyone was worried about him.

 

On 12/1/2019 at 7:50 PM, Thorny said:

So did Armstrong just tell Botterill that the Sabres weren't on his list? That he had no list? Missed that bit. 

This, and a few related items about how exactly the trade happened, are the big unanswered questions here.

 

 

[SwampD]

1 hour ago, nfreeman said:

 

 

JFC. 

This continues to be just an awful take.

What if he'd had cancer or other debilitating illness?  Would you have invited him to "suck it" in that situation?

He had severe depression and was probably pretty close to jumping off a bridge.  Did he need to go through with it to convince you?  Or would he have been "a quitter" then too?

 

But,... he didn't.

On another note, I love Google Translate.

 

[MattPie]

3 hours ago, SwampD said:

But,... he didn't.

On another note, I love Google Translate.

 

Hah.

Depression is a debilitating illness. At what pay point is "take this job and shove it" OK with you and not a "quitter"? $100k? 50k?

[SwampD]

3 hours ago, MattPie said:

Hah.

Depression is a debilitating illness. At what pay point is "take this job and shove it" OK with you and not a "quitter"? $100k? 50k?

There was a radio interview shortly after he was waived with a St Louis station that just left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn’t get the feeling of any “mental illness” or any depression. I just got the feeling of a butthurt athlete who some GM got the better of.

I’ll stop cuz I probably just sound like a dick.

As a human, I wish him nothing but the best, truly.

As a Sabres fan,... he can suck it.?

[Curt]

31 minutes ago, SwampD said:

There was a radio interview shortly after he was waived with a St Louis station that just left a bad taste in my mouth. I didn’t get the feeling of any “mental illness” or any depression. I just got the feeling of a butthurt athlete who some GM got the better of.

I’ll stop cuz I probably just sound like a dick.

As a human, I wish him nothing but the best, truly.

As a Sabres fan,... he can suck it.?

Not lecturing you, but just want to say, it’s not always clear when someone is severely depressed.  People show it in different ways and sometimes don’t show it at all.  People end their own lives and even those closest to them sometimes have no idea that things were so bad for them.

[SwampD]

37 minutes ago, Curt said:

Not lecturing you, but just want to say, it’s not always clear when someone is severely depressed.  People show it in different ways and sometimes don’t show it at all.  People end their own lives and even those closest to them sometimes have no idea that things were so bad for them.

I get it. I'm pretty well versed in clinical depression, unfortunately. I think I'll leave this thread for good.