Expansion Draft and NHL 2017 Awards in 3,2,1…
For the record, I was not one of the guys saying that The Vegas Golden Nights wouldn’t take Calvin Pickard in the NHL expansion draft. To me, it seemed as obvious as an old man at the club hitting on a younger girl after a few shots of whiskey. Yet, the Colorado Avalanche and Joe Sakic chose to expose Calvin Pickard in the expansion draft and essentially let him go for nothing.
Now, you might be saying, but Dater said “Vegas was going to take Varly if he wasn’t protected” and that’s fair. But let me submit for the record, that Vegas made it very clear to the entire league that “any team looking to protect a player they couldn’t list as protected could be saved by way of trade.” Many teams took them up on this offer and simply had to put out a 5th or 4th round pick on the table to keep Vegas from snagging a player at risk. So, why couldn’t the Colorado Avalanche do this? Why couldn’t Joe Sakic do this? MAYBE, there was something behind the scenes we’ll never know about, OR maybe…. Joe Sakic just sucks that this GM’ing thing?This is new territory for me as I’ve had Joe’s back while so many were smearing his name around the social networks like a drunk girl putting lipstick on, on a 747 experiencing significant turbulence. But this… it’s just stupid.
Calvin Pickard hasn’t proven himself as a legit starter yet, but I feel like he would and could. But hey, take that off the table and just focus on this. Valry and Picks are a great one-two punch and could have been an awesome goaltending duo for the next 2 years, which would be plenty of time to find out if Picks was a terminal back-up or if he had the upside to be a legit starter. We’ll never know now because Joe Sakic isn’t as clutch in the GM role as he was the Captian of two Stanley Cup winning teams.
Look, Joe has been learning on the job. You can’t even argue that. But, the free pass is over. Show up and show us that you made the right move, or get the hell out of the GM seat and let someone else drive the ship.
Now that the Expansion Draft and NHL 2017 Awards are over… the long haul to October is upon us. Stay strong and may the hockey be with you.
Harshly yours,
C.H.
