Hockey Widow wrote: ↑Tue Apr 13, 2021 2:23 am
Ya the Gaudette move is a little of a mystery. I would have preferred a 5th or 6th round pick.
I am a Hockey Gaud fan and I really liked what we had @ centre ice with Petey, BoHo, Sutts, Beags, JT Miller sometimes and Gauds. We're prob going to lose Sutts, so having Gauds around would have been ideal. Not sure we have much in the pipeline @ centre, can only think of C.Focht and L.Karlsson, but they're not exactly blue chip prospects.
Not really sure what JB is thinking. Maybe he figured Gauds lvl is pretty much the same as Vesey and T.Boyd and he picked those guys up for nothing. Maybe he was pissed @ Gauds for bringing Covid to the team, so he had to get rid of him. Maybe he thought Gauds was spending too much time playing video games on Twitch and wasn't fully invested in being a pro hockey player. *LOL* Who knows. I'm not really sure why we would get rid of him now though. Sure, he had a terrible start like most of our young supporting cast, but he was starting to come around with some points and scoring some big goals. He's also cheap, still fairly young and plays an important position, still lots of time to improve.
I personally would have given Gauds at least another year, see if getting a healthy diet and getting over that eating disorder would help bring his game to another lvl. Let him have an offseason where he can build strength, maybe pack some weight and see how he does then. If he has another year like this, then yeah, sell low or just cut let him walk a la Hutty/Stech. Highmore doesn't exactly get my mojo going, feels like another Baercheese type, but we'll see how he does. Maybe he really is a speed and 2-way demon, but I think Gauds has all the tools to become a poor man's Jeremy Roenick and this move can come back to bite JB in the arse.