Reader question of the week
Published 1:41 pm Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Alan Caldwell (see link at left) recently delved into the overage situation for every team heading into training camp. He gives a good picture of what sort of decisions every team will be faced with.
Everett finds itself in a different situation from last summer. The only presumptive Tip overage candidates for next season are defensemen Taylor Ellington and Graham Potuer, meaning Everett likely will be an overage buyer this year rather than an overage seller.
Assuming Ellington and Potuer do take up two of the three overage slots, I’m interested to know — should anyone out there be dropping in during the offseason — what you think the Tips should do to fill the third slot. Who would you trade for and what would you be willing to give up? Feel free to include rationale on whether you think the Tips should try to win anything this season, or whether you think they should be focusing on the future and not trading away anything of value for a one-year player.
I’ll get the ball rolling. The northwest tends to be pretty fickle when it comes to sports fandom, so there’s the risk of losing your fanbase if you sacrifice a whole season, so I’d go for a significant acquisition. I’d probably start by calling up old trading partner Swift Current to see who among their forwards (Zack Smith, Keegan Dansereau, Dale Weise) is available. Everett lost a lot of offense from last season and could use someone to pick up the slack. I suspect it would take at least a third rounder to pry one of them loose, perhaps more. But if a team is willing to trade a third rounder to move up four spots in the second round of the bantam draft, it should be willing to at least match that for a proven player.
What do you think?
