Monday, January 12, 2009

Mike Chen on DW's Biggest Mistake

Worth a read.

He thinks the definitive error was letting Marc Savard get away. Not only do I agree, but this is one of those rare situations where I honest-to-God can't imagine having any other opinion.
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8 comments:

Razor Catch Prey said...

It really depends on how you're defining "mistake." In the broad sense, yes, letting Savard go was a big mistake. However, almost no one at the time thought that he was worth the money he was asking.

But then again, you think that President Bush was "lying" when he said that Iraq had WMD's, even though you know that he honestly believed they did because that's what the intelligence told him.

January 13, 2009 at 12:10 AM
Big Shooter said...

The real "mistake" was over paying so much for Bobby Holik that no money was left over for Savard.

January 13, 2009 at 8:10 AM
Mortimer Peacock said...

Shooter-

Exactly. The Holik mistake and the Savard mistake are the same mistake.

January 13, 2009 at 9:37 AM
Mortimer Peacock said...

and Razor-

I actually think Bush really DID believe that Saddam has WMDs. My quibble with him is less over his sincerity or insincerity than stuff like incompetence on the one hand and enabling war crimes on the other. Seems like a nice enough guy, though

But that's another conversation...

January 13, 2009 at 9:40 AM
Mortimer Peacock said...

And by "has," I mean "had." The passage of time is so confusing.

January 13, 2009 at 10:42 AM
Razor Catch Prey said...

Especially since time is not really linear. But again, another conversation for another time.

Shooter- absolutely right. At the time I didn't think we were overpaying Bobby Holik, but that was before the implementation of the new post-lockout rules. If we'd had Holik under the old rules that allowed more interference, he would have been worth it. Unfortunately, in the new system he was useless.

January 13, 2009 at 11:16 AM
The Falconer said...

I'd say the biggest mistake was not paying the price to get a real NHL goalie when Lehtonen got hurt in 2006. They knew he would miss a big chunk and they tried minor leaguers and Steve Shields.

If they had met the Sabres asking price they could have gotten a real goalie and made the playoffs. Because they missed the playoffs they paniced and traded for Zhitnik and Tkachuk the following year. All that would have been unnecessary if they had the playoffs in 06-07.

January 13, 2009 at 10:48 PM
Big Shooter said...

Falconer -

BINGO! That was by far the best team we have ever had. Too bad it didn't work out. I'd say this franchise would look MUCH different if we had made a trade back then...

January 14, 2009 at 4:03 PM

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