Will we improve our 20's

[Score]

Lots of chatter about how some feel the Rocket should improve on their 20yr old situation. Mainly Swit.

Nothing against Swit, but some (myself included) feel that we could improve this team by adding a impact 20yr old, over him.

So, those fans that feel that this is a good move, who type of player do you see the Rocket going after.

First off. A forward or another Dman?

As was posted a couple days ago.....even a combo deal that could involve players like Cacciotti and Paris from the Volts.
This would give us a player who would fit great on our top two lines, and an offensive Dman in Paris who put up 53pts last season....as an 18yr old.

Who else would you like/could the Rocket try to go after if they were in fact interested in upgrading on the 20's?

According to some, Savard just aquired Swit to basically fill the gap till Christmas, as he plans on making some moves at that time...

[wingman]

Score, I understand what you are saying and not arguing with you, but why would Savard trade for Swit as a stop-gap as it makes no sense to do so. I can understand if it was close to the start of the season with time running out and the team was still short a 20 yr old, but he acquired him in June and had all summer to work out a deal for a 20 yr old that can be more of a help. This is just a guess, but this sounds like Savard back-tracking if the Swit trade doesn't pan by saying it was the plan all along to use Swit as a stop-gap instead of acknowledging that a 20 yr old spot shouldn't be used on Swit.

The question is if the plan is to acquire another 20 yr old in December, what do you do with Swit? If he isn't good enough to be a 20 yr old player for a team at the start of the season, I can't see him being good enough of a 20 yr old at Xmas where another team will want to use a 20 yr old spot on him. Or do they simply let him go and the Rocket basically wind up getting nothing in return for Haddad?

[Score]

I understand your point Wingman, im just passing along some info I herd....

Wth the loss of Lommano, Boutin and Grags from last season, and with really a young D core coming into this season, perhaps Savard didn't want to start the new season with a really young D squad.

At the time of acuriring Swit the D was like this:
Lessard
Gervais
Southy
Malouin
Clow

Perhaps Savard wanted to have some experience in the back end right away for the young kids, and really didn't want to "break the bank" for a "top" Dman that soon. Perhaps he wanted to wait until Christmas to see where the team was at that point and to see his options then.

Maybe he was hoping that Swit could do the job(IMO he's not) and he it would have costed him just Haddad, or maybe he wanted to grab a player with experience, hoping the kids won't be put into pressure situations to early, and by Christmas he would evaluate the situation and make a decision then?

Who knows Wingman, I don't thats for sure......but I did hear things along that line so i just wanted to pass them on.

If they do end up letting Swit go for nothing, some will say that it was a waste of a trade, and we lost Haddad for nothing.

Then again, perhaps It would not be a waste, as the young D:
Southy
Clow
Malouin
Deighan
Weren't out into as many tough situations as they possibly could have been....and IMO, young Dman need to be eased into their role, and not thrown into it.

But really, who knows. ;D

[Y Ddraig Goch]

I think Paris will be expensive and could be a bidding war.

Bathurst/Halifax and PEI would all be interested in him at the least.

[wingman]

I wasn't trying to shoot the messenger ;D

I can understand if his line of thinking about not wanting to go into the season with a young D-corps and definitely nothing wrong with stabilizing the blueline with experience, but a 19 yr old could have filled that role also. I would have been happy with another Gervais back there. Savard may have had the right thinking in making that trade, but I don't think he traded for the right player to fill that role.

[Score]

wingman said:

I wasn't trying to shoot the messenger ;D

No worries, your aim is waaaay off.

[Y Ddraig Goch]

wingman said:

I wasn't trying to shoot the messenger ;D

I can understand if his line of thinking about not wanting to go into the season with a young D-corps and definitely nothing wrong with stabilizing the blueline with experience, but a 19 yr old could have filled that role also. I would have been happy with another Gervais back there. Savard may have had the right thinking in making that trade, but I don't think he traded for the right player to fill that role.

Cost may have come into it as well. Swit was relatively cheap. He might have wanted to just fill a gap until he could assess what the real need was. a solid 19yo would have cost a bit. Alternatively he could have nabbed a solid 19 guy on waivers.

[wingman]

admin said:

wingman said:

I wasn't trying to shoot the messenger ;D

No worries, your aim is waaaay off.

and no need to duck with that bad aim!

[wingman]

catatonicmoose said:

wingman said:

I wasn't trying to shoot the messenger ;D

I can understand if his line of thinking about not wanting to go into the season with a young D-corps and definitely nothing wrong with stabilizing the blueline with experience, but a 19 yr old could have filled that role also. I would have been happy with another Gervais back there. Savard may have had the right thinking in making that trade, but I don't think he traded for the right player to fill that role.

Cost may have come into it as well. Swit was relatively cheap. He might have wanted to just fill a gap until he could assess what the real need was. a solid 19yo would have cost a bit. Alternatively he could have nabbed a solid 19 guy on waivers.

True, but if you trade for cheap you sometimes get cheap also. If they had shopped Hadded with a draft pick or two, they could have had a solid player too though. Hawes and Levesque was traded for a second rounder and Hawes was a solid 19 yr old at the time.

[IslandersHKY]

Just to put the Swit trade in context lets remember the timing of the deal.

It was June 1 and at the time:

1) the Rocket's Morrison/Walker were 20's with a risk of going Pro.

2) their defense was actually Lessard, Gervais, Southorn, Malouin, a semi-confirmed rookie Clow (Deighan wasn't drafted yet)

3) Haddad wasn't in their plans and he wanted to be moved so if they didn't trade him he was gone for nothing.

4) The Rocket weren't sure how they would match up with the other teams as most were pegging the Rocket for 4th.

At the time I thought it made sense that Savard was looking to add some low cost experience to our blueline.


Since then, I think the Rocket's perspective has really changed:

1) The Rocket added Main who has played very well and filled that role that I originally was expecting Swit to fill.

2) In preseason Deighan, Clow and Malouin all looked very capable of playing in this league.

3) The Rocket added Kana, as well as a little forward depth with Schmidt and the team looks like they can compete.

4) Lewiston & Bathurst had some unexpected losses which improves the Rocket's chances.


IMO at the time it made sense for the Rocket to add Swit for a low cost but things have changed. So far Swit hasn't even looked like the 4th/5th guy he was expected to be, our 17 yr old rookie defensemen have looked like they can play in this league and the Rocket really look like a team who has a chance to compete.


My preference would be to move Swit now to allow more icetime for Clow/Malouin/Deighan but there likely is a pretty limited market right now and injuries are always a risk. So its probably not a bad idea to keep Swit at least for at least a couple more weeks to see if he improves. If he does he is worth keeping until Christmas and upgrading on then, if not I think he should be moved or outright released.

[wingman]

To some people the trade didn't make sense then and it still doesn't. The Rocket needed a top 6 forward then and they still do. They may have wanted/needed experience on defense but Swit is not the answer. I said this at the time of the trade, Haddad could have been packaged with draft picks or even another 3rd or 4th line player to acquire a solid 20. Simply put, the Rocket missed the boat with acquiring Swit no matter the reasoning behind the trade. But if the Rocket let him go outright, that means we lost Haddad and basically Swit for nothing. No matter what kind of spin is put on it, that is not good trading.

[IslandersHKY]

wingman said:

To some people the trade didn't make sense then and it still doesn't. The Rocket needed a top 6 forward then and they still do. They may have wanted/needed experience on defense but Swit is not the answer. I said this at the time of the trade, Haddad could have been packaged with draft picks or even another 3rd or 4th line player to acquire a solid 20. Simply put, the Rocket missed the boat with acquiring Swit no matter the reasoning behind the trade. But if the Rocket let him go outright, that means we lost Haddad and basically Swit for nothing. No matter what kind of spin is put on it, that is not good trading.

I never said it was a good trade. Simply it was a trade that we had to make which I think made sense at the time. Now it doesn't because things have changed.

[Krang7]

I think the good part of all of this though is that despite it being a bad trade it's not something that we can't recover from. It's not like we're stuck with Swit, or that we gave up a ton for him.

Right now with the situations changing in Bathurst and Lewiston, it could be argued that we're a second place potential team. Add a couple of key players at Christmas time, and by that I mean a top FW and D and we could be pushed into contender status. That's encouraging.

And to do all this it would be almost no problem to drop Swit. If we had have gone out and gotten someone maybe a bit better, but still not good enough to be on a contender, then what do you do? This makes loading up a bit easier, IMO.

[bois]

My thoughts were it was a trade that made no sense at the time and even less sense now.

At the time of the deal Walker and Morrison were not likely going pro as neither was drafted

We certainly needed to add some experience on the backend but we didn't need to give up a 19 year old with 2 years experience for a guy who was not coming back to the Q if we didn't deal for him

In hindsight we'd actually be better off having kept "public whipping boy" Boutin instead of dealing Haddad for Swit.

I do agree we can recover from the mistake without much cost but it still was not a good move IMO... waste of assets

Also while HF99 is correct we didn't know what the roster would look like this year one would certainly hope Savard had some idea of whom he was targeting to draft, was probably quite certain of his Euro selection and that he'd show up, and had likely made the framework for the Main deal

[IslandersHKY]

bois said:

In hindsight we'd actually be better off having kept "public whipping boy" Boutin instead of dealing Haddad for Swit.


Also while HF99 is correct we didn't know what the roster would look like this year one would certainly hope Savard had some idea of whom he was targeting to draft, was probably quite certain of his Euro selection and that he'd show up, and had likely made the framework for the Main deal

Haddad and Boutin were not going to be part of the 2007/08 Rocket they were being moved regardless.

Going into the draft Deighan was ranked as a potential 2nd round pick. The Rocket didn't use their 2nd round pick to get him and didn't have a 3rd. I highly doubt that days before the draft they had their mid 4th round pick targeted for Deighan. Don't get me wrong Deighan as a terrific selection and he has played very well in preseason but with any draft he was a great player who was available not necessarily a target heading in.

As well Bois you have been very vocal about your desire to see this team contend. Well if we go back to the offseason would you rather have had Lessard, Gervais, Southorn, Malouin with rookie unknowns Clow, Deighan (think back then before you saw them in preseason).

or

Would it make more sense to try and use an asset that was gone anyway (Haddad) to add a little experience with a 20 yr old veteran.

At the time I agree with you that i would have prefered add a higher quality player but that player would cost more. And at the time the Rocket didn't look like a potential contender so did they want to pay a bigger cost for a player that still wasn't going to move them into Contender status? Obviously not.

I also think that some of us are getting ahead of ourselfs. As bois regularly points I try to focus on the positive aspects of this team and that is that I really really love the base of this team and I think they have the potential to be a real contender.

But the reality is that at this point on paper this team isn't quite in the same "Contender Status" of a Halifax and has something questions to answer (secondary scoring, defense as good as last season) before they can be.

So for right now what is wrong with what we have. If this team shows they can be a real Contender then we will see what moves Savard makes. I'm not like Chsb and say that I expect him to make all the right ones them. Simply that for the time being
I am happy with what we have and will wait and see if we add the right pieces for the right cost when the time comes.

Having said that as I posted before IMO even for Swit to deserve to stay until Christmas he is really going to have to pick it up. If his play doesn't improve over the next couple of weeks I think he should be moved or released.