Crowned wrote
You say I overrate players throughout the organization? You're the type of fan that openly criticizes every move the management makes, every stumble a young player makes and stands firm in that stance. Have some patience.
People want to rebuild in Toronto? I'd hate to see that. Unless every young player strives right away (ala Staal/Malkin), they'd be criticized and written off immediately.
Ahhh you again. I thought this discussion was over.
If you read my post before this one, which was directed to you directly, I stated that I believe you overrate A particular player in Steen and I actually share your opinion on Stralman, Kulemin, Tulsty, Pogge and the like. However, even after his first season I still would have traded him and Kaberle for Pronger, to me that was a no-brainer! So I feel that Steen has been overrated since he got here, end of story period. So as a fan, I'm thinking, "hmmmmm okay, Steen is an untouchable after his first year yet I cannot figure out what he's done to merit not being traded for the best d-man in the league...but I'm sure he'll get better next year and prove his worth." And to this day I'm still waiting.
Guys like Staal, Malkin etc are untouchables because they have EARNED it. Steen has not earned it. So the beauty is this: we are both biased and we are both basing our evaluation on Steen based on PROJECTIONS and at the end of the day that is all we can go on. IF Steen had 35 goals last year and 80 pts and I said "Geez he's still not scoring 50 and getting 100 pts, that would be a blatant example of me being a critic for the sake of being a critic. In this case, there is a lot of ambiguity and a lot of smoke around Steen's career, we just cannot fully see where it will head until the smoke clears. You will cite good points (e.g., good first year, 2 way ability, maturity, skills, etc) as reasons as to why he will become better and I have my reasons (sophomore play, no real flashes of game changing abilities) as my reasons...the truth is we do not know who the real Steen is yet. Is he the player who had one of year and will take off soon? Or is he more the player we saw last year? THE JURY IS STILL OUT.
I am all about building for the future and being patient. But instead of making backhanded comments to me about what you believe my stance on this team ought to be (i.e., thinking that I could not be patient with young players or with rebuilding) maybe you should re-direct it towards MLSE and tell me what the heck they want to do?
I could be content if we gutted this entire team and built it from the ground up, the real proper way. I was all for trading Tucker and Sundin at the trade deadline this past year. I did not want the Leafs to trade Rask for Raycroft or any picks this year. Last offseason the Leafs should have brought in a Manny Legace type to fill the transition between him and Pogge. I was against the Perreault trade for a 2nd round pick. We should be stockpiling our assets. But we've decided to take the waffling approach where we rebuild and try to stay competitive. I feel for JFJ because there is so much pressure on him to keep his job. And to be fair, he's done a better job this summer than last, but his moves this summer (a lot of them) were needed to fix the mistakes he made last offseason.
The entire impetus of this discussion was this: In my eyes Alex Steen is not an "untouchable" regardless of whether all the GM's see potential in him. As I mentioned in another post, there is a confound here, if the youngsters in the minors are off limits and only roster players are available to be traded, then naturally the only name that teams will ask for is Steen, 1) because he has potential (never disputed that) and 2) he is the best of a medicore group on "young talent" (Stajan is a third liner and Wellwood is more one dimensional, though I really like him. However, either way you slice it my only premise was: Alex Steen has never been nor should he ever be considered an untouchable and I feel that he is overrated for what he has shown up, period.
I may to you, be the fan that critics every move and doesn't stay patient, but you may be the fan who stays too patient and falls in love with his own players too much. The truth, I hope is that as fans we can find a middle ground. I do not believe I'm an extreme critic, nor do I think you feel being called a homer is what you're about. We both probably in the middle somewhere.
