Being we are just over 48 hours away from the deadline that decide whether Shea Weber joins the Flyers or remains in Nashville. I can’t explain how tense the fan base is currently as we painstakingly wait hoping that the decision comes down any minute. That has not happened yet nor do I think it will happen until Wednesday. I think the Preds have made their decision and it is based on monetary calculations specifically, but that is a hard sell to the fans. Especially fans that, if the Preds do indeed let Weber go, have seen 2 of their top defensemen walk away from the team this offseason. It’s just been a rough go of it for Nashville this offseason. The Flyers on the other hand can cap off a very successful offseason by adding Shea Weber to the squad (and possibly Shane Doan). Just 2 more days…
Scott Howson…what can you say about this guy? He is a former player who was bad to mediocre during his career spent in the AHL levels or lower. If only their was a minor league for GMs. He has absolutely buried this organization with bonehead move after bonehead move. Just in the last few seasons he has seemingly formulated a plan to make this franchise worse then it already was season in and season out. Within the last season alone he put the franchise back by 5-10 years. He cancelled out the best move he made as a GM by trading for Jeff Carter to play with Rick Nash. They would have been the franchise’s first true high scoring duo and they were both locked up for a long time. Carter’s contract was especially cap friendly. Howson did give up a lot to get Cartsy including the 8th overall pick which turned out to be Couturier, but it was actually a good move in an attempt to produce more scoring. Howson gave up on the Carter contract just 39 games into Carter’s Columbus voyage and traded him to LA for…Jack Johnson. Underachieving Jack Johnson for a guy, who in his own right is an underachiever, but was just the icing on the cake to a Stanley Cup team. Howson had to recognize that LA wanted Cartsy bad and he could drive the price up higher then Jack Johnson and a 1st round pick. How about more picks? Oh yeah that’s right that would be a waste because Columbus just has a hell of a record at the draft. Perennial losers on draft night as they usually are the only pick they have made that turned out to be worth anything has been Rick Nash which they drafted in 2002. Some of that blame is on the scouts, but Howson gets last say and has to do his homework as well.
And now Howson has done it again. The only thing left to look at in this franchise and say ‘well at least we got that’ was just shipped off to the Big Apple for a third liner, a fourth liner, a prospect and 1st round pick. Nice work Scott. You truly can cement yourself in now as the worst GM of all time. Garth Snow looks like Glen Sather compared to you. I hope all of Columbus enjoys watching Anisimov promoted as the star acquisition of the offseason. It’s not fair to Columbus to have a person like Howson at the helm. He is incompetent and has no business running an NHL team. He absolutely ruined this Nash deal before it even happened. He handcuffed the entire organization by not dealing him right away. As time ticks by teams can smell blood in the water and know you can’t go into next season with a guy on your team who wants out. It was just a matter of time before he botched this one. Just another notch to his GM credentials.
As for what this means for the Rangers – watch out for this offense next season. I know the Rangers have been in on Nash since January, but I think they pushed hard to put a wrap on it now because of the Flyers potentially signing Weber. It’s all about keeping up with the other teams and if the Flyers do land Weber (and hopefully Doan too) these 2 teams are going to have some battles next season. I mean some blood, sweat and tears battles. In the immortal words of Bart Scott “Can’t wait”.
-John LaMarra
Twitter – @popesnipes77
E-Mail – lamarrajunior@yahoo.com