OK, I'm now more calm.
There is no doubt at all that Vancouver is in a better position. The draft picks were all quite good (as much as you can evaluate right now until we see results in 2-3 years). There's 2 issues with what happened yesterday:
1) For the first time ever, I feel we truly got robbed.
People will talk about the Kassian / Hodgson deal but you still have to give a player like Kassian a couple of years to mature. Also AV's style doesn't match with allowing a player like Kassian to grow. So judge that deal at the end of this next season.
But this deal here, we gave away a top 10 goaltender who could potentially be a top 5 goalie for the 9th overall pick. The 5th, 6th, and 7th were available. We could have traded to Carolina as they said they would have taken that deal. We didn't want S.Monnahon? Fine. Trade for 5th, then trade down to 9th with also getting a 2nd round pick, like multiple teams did.
Further to that, we should have gotten a player for the now as part of the package. We are in a Sedin window situation and need desperately a 1st line scoring winger. We did not address that concern at all.
2) We didn't handle the personnel in a professional manner. Once again, this isn't a Cody Hodgson situation where he was acting like a perpetuate child and whining to be traded. There should have been a conversation with Luongo before the draft day to talk about the options being considered. It also should have been better handled from day 1, but just talking about this deal here.
EDIT - Free agency day can be where everything is forgiven. If you can get a discounted player to wash out the bad taste in our mouths Gillis and make amends with Luongo, then maybe it will be all forgiven.
