Tom Sestito

It's still relative. They picked badly. We had late picks under gillis and picked badly with those picks up until whatever 2012 or 2013 when he revamped the scouting department

Check again. Boston has been terrible drafting for the last 15 years - Benning or no Benning.

The drafting under Benning from 2007-2013 was equally as bad as Boston's drafting was after he left.

Arizona finished ahead of Vancouver

whos that

On a serious note, you are dead wrong. If you changed Pettersson to Hughes and used this phrasing, I would agree with you. But EP is a superstar who dominates the game when he’s on the ice on both ends.

Stop being negative Petey is loyal and will stay

I would bet you they go to a 2-3 year deal in the 6 range. That’s what I would pay him, at least. If you pay him more, you’d be banking on some hope that he improves defensively to be passable. He isn’t there yet. I wouldn’t want to risk that bet. I would do 8 years on Pettersson if we had the capspace.

I’m not disputing any of that. My point is it wasn’t a guarantee that Edler had a renaissance post-torts and turned into this fantastic defensive player rather than the primarily offense guy he was before. Now with OEL, you’re banking on that Edler-like renaissance and you basically need it to happen because of the contract that is attached to it.

Points aren’t what I judge a defenseman by.

We can’t be going relative to a bad contract. Hughes isn’t at the level of Heiskanen and Makar because of his defensive play compared to those guys. Hughes should slot in far lower.

Edler played his best hockey from 2014-2020. There’s precedent here if he can adjust his game and have a second prime. It’s unlikely but a definite possibility. I am going to reserve most of my judgement on how he performs on this team until game 82. I do think there’s basically no level he can perform at where people wouldn’t call him a top four D as we’ve seen with Myers.

Sure, I’ve never debated that his morale was shot. That has always been clear. My point is it has been so long since he played at a truly high level - and he himself admitted that. I’m hopeful but not optimistic about him returning to form.

Yeah, I don’t doubt some level of improvement because of the coaching change but there have been some insane denials of how bad OEL has been for the last few years. They need him to perform like an elite top four D. If they do, and his contract becomes only a slight overpayment, the trade becomes a win. If he performs near the level he has under Tocchet, we are &^@#ed.

Feels like people weren’t happy when I said OEL hasn’t been good for five years - he himself said he’s struggled for the last four years.