Bruins need left d, not rd. So no, they aren’t trading a LD for a RD. The value also isn’t there.

What?

They need LHD, montour is a RHD
Montour has less value than Urho alone
And you still included a bruins second

Just makes no sense at all

No, Absolutely no

Bruins decline. Vaakanainen has top4 potential and Montour's value is a 2nd, at best. So it's basically the double that Buffalo get. Bruins also need a top4 LHD (that can defend), not offensive RHD. Buffalo doesn't really have that.

I think Vaakanainen is overrated

I honestly think that both viewpoints here are fair. On the one hand, the bruins seem to love Vaakanainen. They’re definitely letting him develop slow, he’s looked solid in NHL appearances, but there aren’t a ton of those. I can see people thinking that with every passing day that he isn’t a full time NHLer, he is trending down.

On the other hand, i see a huge red flag with montour. He got traded to buffalo, and ever since his ice time has gone down and down and down. Coaches don’t trust him as much as they did when they traded for him. That’s a bad sign.

All of this doesn’t really matter though, because the bruins have an abundance of RD, and need LD.

Agree to disagree. Anyways, it's what Bruins' management think about him that is important.

What do u mean no, its right lol
I havent stated an opinion yet

1000% opinion

Montour went from a team with 2 NHL dmen to a team with 8 and hes had a little more than half of a season with Buffalo. Hes played mostly with Dahlin and Ristolainen, 1st and 2nd pair. Theiors only red flags because your looking at raw data with no context and a bias going in.

I mean, this is a team that’s in division with my favorite team. It’s not like i don’t see them play. I think montour is definitely solid, but not exactly special. He’d be a guy that the bruins would target if they didn’t have Brandon Carlo and Charlie mcavoy...but they do.

Crosby is better than John Scott, i guess thats an opinion to you?

Technically it is, but Vaakanainen is no Crosby and Montour is no John Scott, homer

@Bcarlo25
@Silkysmooth42
@bhavikp27
@Shibbal18

Seems to be in general a polite conversation, we need to remember we all casual observers and tend to over rate our own players and prospects.
Let's start that it is unlikely the Bruins would make this trade as was pointed out they need LHD more than RHD.
Let me share some fun facts.
Last year Montour was the Sabres best defenseman by far.
While that was only a 20 game sample it does reflect his talent.
This year:
only Ristolainen had a higher TOI than he.
he had the highest +/- of all skaters
only Scandella had a higher PDO than he.

But many good observations regarding his apparent drop in production this year.
Krueger miss used many players on this team.
Rodrigues, Sheary, Miller, Montour, Vesey, Okposo and Montour (and Hutton) all had career worse seasons.
I could add Pilut to the list but this was only his second season in the NHL, then he bolted to the KHL.

Montour is a solid puck moving defenseman who excels at bringing the puck out of his own zone.
In Anaheim most of ZS were in the defensive zone, in Buffalo Krueger had him start mainly in the OZ.
Just one of many ways Krueger miss used players.

He was traded to Buffalo for a late 1st round pick 29th and a prospect probably better than Vaakanainen.
I do not see this as being too much for Montour now.

But if you all want to say Boston does not need a RHD that is fine.
Please do not fool yourselves into thinking he is not worth a late second and a C+ prospect.
He just not worth that to Boston.

I agree with most of this except for blaming Krueger. Rodrigues, Sheary, Vesey, Okposo are not good. Rodrigues and Sheary were both moved and were just as bad or worse. Vesey played with Eichel and did nothing. Okposo had 30 points and was on the sabres 2nd best line. Miller was benched so they could shop Scandella and Bogosian, both who Botterill waited way to long to move and got nothing in return, Montour was in the top 2 pairs, his offensive numbers were stymied by a pathetic offense. Pilut was another Botterill blunder, similar to Miller, Krueger isnt to blame there. Hutton had health issues and couldnt see the puck.

While you are correct the team had an too many RHD, please remember at the beginning of the season, Gilmour was in the press box due to injuries.
So at the beginning of the season they actually did not have enough NHL quality defensemen
Quite simply, Krueger had a better team than Housley and did no better, in fact worse.

You and others blame Botterill for how Krueger handled the team.
I guess it was Botterill:
who caused Pilut to score no points and be minus 4 in 13 games.
that Rodrigues and Sheary performed much better under Housley.
While Vesey played with Jack, the CF% was 55.56 with out Jimmy, Jack's CF% was 49.91. I would say, Jimmy did very well with Jack.
That was still Okposo worse season of his career, even the season while he was recovering from a concussion was better.
You say Okposo was not good, well only Olofsson, Reinhart and Eichel had more pts/min than he.
If that is not proof that he should have been on the second line at least with Skinner and Johansson,
or move Reinhart to the second line and Okposo to the top line, to balance the scoring.
There was no excuse to play Skinner with Sobotka and not with Jack.

Botterill's biggest mistake was hiring Krueger.
After adding Vesey who should have been a 17 goal performer, Miller, yes his poor performance was partially due to circumstance, but was still terrible, Jokiharju, solid performer and Johansson who had a decent season, the team did terrible even with the added talent.

Let me close, ANY coach that let's the GM tell him how to run the team should be fired.
The coach tells the GM what sort of player he wants and the GM gets them.
Then the coach puts together a team, Sobotka on the second line, really?
Regardless, the team had more talent in 2019-20 than 2018-19 and could not get into the preliminaries.

Let's agree to disagree, because you will not ever convince me nor I you..

I didn't " overrate " Vaakanainen. He had top4 potential and he still does.
" He was traded to Buffalo for a late 1st round pick 29th and a prospect probably better than Vaakanainen. " That's Guhle you're talking about? How is he " probably better than Vaakanainen "? hahah

First, " last year " is 2019-20 now.
" only Ristolainen had a higher TOI than he. " Usually, the best defenseman gets the most TOI but in the Sabres case, Dahlin was the best dman this year although he got 3rd pair mins at 5v5 and was sheltered. Ristolainen may get big minutes but he's awful in those minutes. Whatever it is because of Sabres' lack of top pair D or if they believe he is a top pair D, it doesn't mean that Montour is the 2nd best D because only Ristolainen got more TOI.
" he had the highest +/- of all skaters " +/- is a flawed stat. Vesey, Scandella who were right after him in that stat category were traded, next were their best defensive player (Larsson) and their best player (Eichel).

This year, Montour was poor defensively, wasn't not good on the PK and took a hit offensively (his thing) since it was his worst season in 3 years as regular NHLer. All that despite being given the 3rd most easiest quality of competition among the Sabres regular Dmens.

Right now, (not the Bruins) if I was working for any team, I wouldn't give more than a high 3rd. When he's at his best, a mid-second maybe.

Pilut had 1 g 4 a in 33 games the year before and was -8 so those numbers are fairly consistent. Montour and Bogosian was hurt at the beginning of the year and we still had enough NHL dmen where Gilmour only played 2 games. Krueger had a worse team than Housley. The Sabres d improved but goaltending and forwards got worse. Rodrigues and Sheary were still not good under Housley, please remember when everyone was ready to crown Rodrigues the next 2C i had to drag you all back down to earth. Sheary had boosted numbers with Crosby but has never reached that level since.
Vesey did well because his corsi went up? With one of the best puck possesion players in the league? How is that an arguement. Okposo has been degrading every year since he signed in Buffalo, the game passed him by, it doesnt matter how hes used. Okposo's points per minute is more a condemnation of the forward group than an excuse that hes a top 6 forward. He cant keep up with the top 6.
Skinner should have played with Eichel but then we had no idea if Olofsson could carry a line by himself and we needed more than 1 offensive line. He was banking on Skinner being a star and carrying his center. Up until Sobotka got hurt they were actually doing well. Same reason why people think Girgensons should play up with Hall and Eichel.
Krueger is one of the most respected coaches in the league and were only going to get better a lot due to Krueger himself. Weve already seen it with Hall signing, specifically because of Krueger. Very few of your arguments against him are valid

Vaakanainen is not a C+ prospect.

This is a bad trade for both value and need.

He tops out as a 2nd or bottom pairing shutdown dman.

He’s not a shut down d man.

Saying any d man “tops out,” at anything when they’re 21 it outrageously stupid. More so when the player in question is a European mid first rounder. Yikes.

Hes not an offensive dman, at the NHL level, so if he doesnt learn to play D then hes a career AHLer. Jokiharju was taken 11 picks after him and they come from the same development background, i would say Jokiharju is a 2nd pair dman that could potentially cover on the top line. The Sabres could have easily buried Jokiharju as well last year but didnt. So Id say its easy to say Vaakanainen is a rung below Jokiharju, which would put him in the 2nd/bottom pair territory.

Based on?

Watching him and stats. He barely produced in the AHL. Everyone in here saying Montour offense was so bad this year, Montour out scored Vaakanainen at a higher level in less games

I don’t know who everyone is, but i haven’t said montour is bad. Who has? I said he has some red flags.

Don’t pretend that you’ve seen vaakanainen play. You called him a shut down d man not long ago.

I can take a pretty educated guess at what happened here. You didn’t know of a guy. You looked him up. You saw his AHL stats. You saw that he wasn’t an NHL regular, and decided that was enough to cap his career potential.

Imagine if GMs did that with montour. When he was vaakanainen’s age he was at UMass wasn’t he? You probably would have traded him for a 5th.