Tyson Barrie Trade
Joe Sakic was cruel to Tyson Barrie last summer. He took the young defenseman all the way through salary arbitration then gave Barrie what he wanted anyway. He put Barrie through having to hear the team say nasty things about him just to prove a point to Barrie and his agent, Pat Morris. (Also Ryan O’Reilly‘s agent.)
Patrick Roy wouldn’t have done that to his player. Whatever faults he found with Barrie’s game — and the only “insult” he laid on Barrie was to joke the young rover reminded him of Sandis Ozolinsh, who created scoring chances on both ends of the ice — Roy was a player’s coach, and he didn’t make players twist in the wind with him.
No, Patrick Roy would have gotten Barrie to sign a deal, and then he would have traded him. Roy probably could have gotten a good return for Barrie — a young forward, a defensive prospect, and a draft pick.
For example, last year there was talk of trading Barrie for Drouin. I imagine Roy could have gotten a defensive prospect and a draft pick for, say, Barrie and a later round draft pick out of his old rival, Steve Yzerman.
That wouldn’t have been a bad haul. The Avs would have still needed help on defense, but then, Roy wouldn’t have traded away Nick Holden. And before you go writing something nasty about that observation in the comments section below, I’m not saying Holden is better than Barrie.
But then, Eric Gelinas was a Roy-guy, too. So, the d-corps could have looked something like this:
- Erik Johnson–Nikita Zadorov
- Eric Gelinas-Chris Bigras
- Nick Holden-Francois Beauchemin
Patrick Wiercioch may have been on that team, too.
It’s not ideal, but remember that the Avs would have had another defensive prospect waiting in the wings via trade as well as a shiny new forwardm — Jonathan Drouin, not Joe Colborne, up front.