#6's #s: 75 games, 2 goals, 12 assists, +8, 27 PIM.
Take the good: Wade made eight mil this year but only $6.5 was on the cap, so that's good. But seriously, at the end of the season Redden proved that he was an almost-capable third pairing defenseman; he minimized mistakes by keeping his game simple and playing as far away from the puck as he could. Prior to that he showed he had a bit of a backbone by arguing with Tortorella when Torts sent him to the press box but that emotion never translated to his play on the ice.Take the bad: Redden's former partner in Ottawa Zdeno Chara made half a mil less this year and he is a Norris Trophy winner. Redden? The only hardware he could win is the Lady Byng because he is so soft. Then again, he showed off just how tough he was by beating up a soft frenchman on Montreal in Benoit Pouliot - not exactly Georges Laraque. When paired with Girardi or Gilroy, he visibly set back the youngsters' development as they often had to cover for him and scramble back once his much vaunted 'first pass out of the zone' went directly to an opposing player.
Take them both and then we have: To steal one of my own lines, he is a "highly paid albatross who damns this team to sail the seas of mediocrity." An utter waste of salary cap space, Redden has already made the top five in every list of the worst free agent signings in hockey history ... and he has four more years left on his deal.
6 comments:
If you're going to highlight the +/- of Del Zotto and Girardi, it should probably be highlighted that Redden was (unbelievably) plus-8 this season. And, next week or whenever, that everyone's BFF Ryan Callahan was minus-12...
In other words, it's either a useless stat, or we need to re-jigger our perceptions of some of our blue-shirted heroes/goats. But the stat probably shouldn't be used/ignored selectively.
The Caps had a similar problem at least in the short term in Nylander eating up nearly $5 million of cap space and they sent him to the minors and he eventually drifted back to Sweden. As a result they were able to add depth for the playoffs in the form of Corvu, Belanger, and Walker.
Their owner was willing to bite the bullet. Pay Redden the money to play in Lower Slobovia or wherever. Buying him out is a cap hit and that means less money to spend on productive players. Even losing him on reverse waivers is not a good idea because you'd have to pay half his salary as a cap hit.
As long as Redden is on the roster, the team is going nowhere. They can't develop a better defence corps and bring some relativity to salary level and contribution the the team. It's no consolation to say that the situation could have been much worse with Kotalik sitting there for two more years and their leading "scorer" being Gomez and not Gaborik.
That's why I don't blame Tortorella for the failure this year. Even Knute Rocke would have thrown up his hands with the cards he was dealt, especially not having a backup goaltender most of the season. If Redden had been sitting in the Phoenix dressing room in the fall instead of Jovanovski that team in its desperate situation wouldn't have won 10 games since they wouldn't have had any leadership; Doan alone wouldn't have been enough.
There were a lot of rumors about Wade Redden and cocaine use in Ottawa in the year before he left. Maybe some team-minded individual should get Redden hooked on crack...drug policy violations might get his contract invalidated, right? Or someone should surreptitiously inject him with steroids and heroin the day before a scheduled drug test and let the NHL suspend him.
Kevin Stevens is available to help out with this, if needed. It's time to start thinking of different ways to fix this problem.
Standing up for himself and his team in that fight is probably the only admirable thing he did this year. Even though Pouliot isn't exactly a heavyweight, Redden is Mr. Softy incarnate. The fight should probably go in his "take the good" column.
Could you throw up a picture of the infamous Ottawa sign? That was a great night.
Someone just needs to take one for the team and pull a Nancy Kerrigan / Tonya Harding move. Break his knee into 700 pieces problem solved
Speaking of Redden; what do you think Redden for Souray..... In a heartbeat ( http://bleacherreport.com/articles/378983-rangers-quasi-trade-rumor-wade-redden-for-sheldon-souray )
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