Habster:
Praise the Lord!!!!,……what took Bob Gainey so long to make this move or for that matter any move!!! What makes Gainey a good GM is also what keeps him from being a better GM: TOO MUCH PATIENCE!!!!
General managers have to notice on and off ice tendencies/weaknesses about their teams, Bob Gainey is no different. He stated at last season’s year end news conference that there were some deficiencies and an imbalance with his team,
“I’m going to tell you exactly what I told the players this week,” said Gainey. “We were a team with several important imbalances. We were incredibly strong in some areas and weak in others. We improved our play five-on-five down the stretch, we got stronger, played smarter and we almost got to the playoffs.”
Gainey understood his team’s weaknesses and tried to address them in the off-season without much success (with the exception of Roman Hamrlik). Bryan Smloinski hasn’t worked out to this point while Tom Kostopoulos has worked hard but is inconsistent from game to game. The last few games, Patrice Brisebois has started to show some old “Breezeby” traits with 2-3 giveaways per game.
Calling up Maxim Lapierre, Ryan O’Bryne and demoting Mikhail Grabovski is a good first step to bring some more energy and internal competition to a slumping team that needs a wake up call. Grabovski wasn’t playing much and when he did play, he wasn’t very effective. IF he reports to Hamilton, he will get much needed playing time.
The addition of O’Bryne will help in defensive zone coverage especially clearing the front of the net and winning battles along the boards. Lapierre will bring more energy and can be very effective against the other team’s top six forwards as a checker or agitator. Both players will certainly bring more size to the lineup but it is also up to the other players to raise their level of play.
Bob, keep the telephone line open and if you can pull the trigger on a trade to improve the team, go for it!!!!!!…..Please!!!
