capebretonflyer

"Flyers"

Sydney, NS • Canada •

Shea Weber

Hello, In my second blog I thought I would talk about "the one that got away", Shea Weber, and the possibility(if any) that he could someday wear the orange and black. When the Flyers signed Weber to that offer sheet all of flyers land nervously rejoiced. We knew it wasn't 100%, but if it worked we would have in my opinion one of the two best defencemen in the NHL(Chara Being the other, after Lidstrom retiring). You could argue others like Karlson, Keith, Suter, but for all around defencemen Shea is top 2 for me for sure. His vision is exellent, his slap shot is a rocket, his hitting is devestating and his defensive play has no holes. If he had became a member of the Flyers, I am sure he would have been given the C over Giroux, no knock against Giroux, as he is also a great leader, but Weber is everything Philly loves about hockey. When Nashville matched the offersheet I almost cried(I cried lol), the dream was over. It was a ballsy move by Homer but ended up costing us big, not only did we lose Matt Carle waiting for Weber but now Weber was signed for 14 years in Nashville. Hindsight is 20x20 but for me I felt all along that a 1 year 10m offer would have been better, because even if Nashville matched we would have been able to sign him as a UFA this year. I know its easy to be an armchair GM and say they should have done this or that, and I have really no idea if Weber would have signed a 1 year deal but if it was a possibility it would have clearly been the better route.

Anyway enough of depressing everyone with the past, whats done is done. Lets talk about the future. Is there still a chance Shea will wear the orange and black? Really the only information I have about it is that Homer did call to inquire with Pollie whether he would be interested in moving Weber on the anniversary of the offersheet signing. Pollie told Homer that since he just had to cut him a $10 million check for signing bonuses that in fact, no he was not interested in trading him. Its not surpising really, like I said Weber is one of the top D-men to play the game, and Nashville did the right thing matching the offersheet in the first place, four late 1st rounders was not worth trading a franchise player. The truth is that Nashville is in a even better position this year to not trade him, they made some low key but solid moves this year in the UFA market bringing in 4 solid forward pieces(Stalberg,Cullen,Hendricks,Nystrom). They have addressed their offence and now look like a team ready for hockey. Adding Jones was also a big move. The one thing is that they still have no real star forwards, they are a lunch pail team that thinks defence first and scores by commity.

So finally we come to the part about what would it take to make them change their mind and stun the hockey world by finally trading him. To me it would have to be at least one star forward, a stud d-man, 2 high-end prospects and picks. Here is my offer(or offers) if I'm Homer and I'm making my last ditch effort to finally make Shea Weber a Flyer

To Nashville
Voracek+1 of Streit/Meszaros/Coburn+Laughton+1 of Hagg/Morin+1st+1st

or

Voracek+1 of Streit/Meszaros/Coburn+Laughton+Hagg+Morin+1st

or

Voracek+L.Schenn+Laughton+1 of Hagg/Morin

As you can see I tried to give some options while keeping the value close to the same. Now there are other offers I would take say swapping out one of those D for Grossmann and adding a 2nd or something or swapping Voracek for Read or Simmonds even but something close to that value. Really the only untouchables for me are Giroux, B.Schenn, and Couturier, but there you have it my assessment of Webers Value and my offers. My rationality behind the offers is simple, Voracek is the type of game breaking forward they need and with a solid D and 2 or 3 good prospects going the other way the deal is fair in my opinion. Now I want to know what you think, are these reasonable offers?Is it to much? To little? What would your offer be and do you think another team might be willing or able to offer anything better? or is there no chance in hell Weber will ever get moved? Let me know what you think and thanks for reading.

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