Ok so Bill Armstrong is the guy who drafted and built STL helping his dad rebuild his damaged Reputation after being fired for his all old timer roster neglecting development of his youth. So his dad takes the job as GM and Bill goes from being a voice at the Draft for the GM to The Voice at the draft for the GM picking 85% of their Stanley Cup Roster doing best with 2nd and 3rd round picks.

There's absolutely no motivation for him to make this deal based on his entire history to date.
Keller will stay just like Taresenko did because he's their leader , even after Cooley shows up and eventually becomes Captain and the Face of the Franchise. . . Keller will still be there .

Crouse was the 1st guy Armstrong gave Term to of more then 2 years who wasnt on an ELC.
He invested in him heavily because its my beliefs he will be to Cooley what Jari Kuri was to Gretzky .
If you dont get the reference he's not a goon but he'll **** you up if you go near Cooley.

To take Mantha alone i'd want a 1st round pick unless WSH RS 50% then i'd still want a 2nd and a prospect.
Kuznetsov isnt worth trading for either of these young players even 1 for 1 .

Seems like a team trying to take advantage of ARZ as if they dont know who their GM is

That’ll be a no from Arizona. Not trading either player, especially for a big cap dump in mantha, a vet that makes no sense for the team, and a 1st which is the only thing that’s interesting here.

Big no from Arizona and also from M NTC Kuznetshov

So before I make this comment, I want to say that I recognize this is a very bad trade for Arizona. But the idea that you think mantha costs a first to dump or a second and a prospect at 50% retained is so out of touch.

Monahan same context , term and cap hit
Cost a 1st to move after 2 years of trying to move him with no offers.
I can list more examples , anyone who pays attention see's them .
Teams dont take on capdumps for nothing , i find it depressing i have to say this out loud.
Whether its this year with Monahan or 4 years ago with Marleau
Someone playing that bad gets a 1st unless you RS

I mean you have tried to dump him and had absolutely no luck .
But ill go head to head example for example so i can point out you're just making stuff up based on lack of knowledge.
You didnt fact check or research just gave some lazy hipster excuse of "youre outta touch " without providing any intellectual insights.

I’m sorry, what? Where has there been any sort of report the caps have been trying to dump mantha? And the difference between Monahan and mantha is that mantha actually has value whereas Monahan had none at the time of the trade. The belief was he was chronically injured and wouldn’t be able to make an impact again in the nhl. Its widely known mantha is heavily misused by an idiot coach in Washington.

You’re out of your mind for suggesting that the caps are going to trade a first round pick for a guy they could easily buy out or find someone else to take for cheaper. There are teams that will want mantha this off-season. And to suggest we will retain half for this season and give you a second and a prospect? What a joke of a sentence.

Yupp you're a team who sold at the Deadline who valued Mantha so much you decided to keep him from a Contender to save him for a trade to ARZ hahaha
You cant make this stuff up

But yes your team has been shopping Mantha with no luck , just because they didnt release a memo saying "cap dump" doesnt mean that's not what he is.
If he had value you'd keep him , but he doesnt so you're trying to pawn him off on other teams with some lame excuse of "its all his coaches fault since like his 2nd or 3rd year pro . Imagine if a MTL fan tried saying that about Armia,we'd get laughed off this site.

You can easily buy him out for for 1.3m and 2.1m cap hit the next 2 years
But no one's trading for Mantha , there are no teams that want him as he's always injured since age 23 he hasnt finished a full season.
Most important he doesnt show up in the playoffs, I mean Armia did more in 1 run then Mantha is many runs .
Not saying Armia's better , he's not but he shows up when it matters and Mantha's a Ghost


I challenged you to combat my examples in context with your own.
Your response was to ignore it because you couldnt find any .
Just saying thats as good as admitting you've conceded

lol okay I “concede” your majesty 😂 what a nightmare of a response.

Well, if you actually understood Mantha's scenario, it is easy to see where your argument runs right off of the rails.

Firstly, Mantha was a key contributor for Washington the first year and a half he was in DC. He was on about a 50 point pace through both those seasons, played solid defense while getting sporadic power play opportunities. Here's where we hit our first problem: lack of PP time. Mantha was easily one of Washington's best offensive forwards throughout his first year and a half, he was passed up on PP1 time and was relegated to sporadic PP2 appearances with an incompetent PP QB (Schultz). It's important to note this as it shows he is already being treated unfavorably by Laviolette. This is important for later.

Mantha was also an incredibly important part of Washington's playoff series against Florida, being one of their best forecheckers (behind only Wilson, who had an amazing playoff before getting hurt), and generally fufilling everything that was asked of him in a larger role due to the injuries to the ailing Oshie and Wilson. The take that he doesn't show up in the playoffs is absurd, especially considering he's only made the playoffs twice. If you want to make the Armia argument again, he's been there more times than Mantha and had far more games to make an impact (Mantha in 2022 had half the points Armia did in 2021, while playing in 15 less games).

This brings us to this year, in which Mantha was curiously dropped to the third line behind players like Sheary and Oshie, despite healthily outplaying both of them last year and playing well during his short time in the pre-season. What originally looked to be simply a wealth of talent, with Brown being played over Mantha due to having a tremendous pre-season, quickly showed itself as a failure of coaching when Mantha was kept where he was in favor of Sheary after Brown went down with a season ending ACL tear. Mantha's TOI was never in a high range throughout the first part of the year, and even with playing on a line with two of Washington's worst offensive forwards (Johansson and Eller had some of the worst offensive stats on the team, yet Johansson gained power play time over Mantha in spite of this), he was scoring at a healthy clip. He, like the rest of the team, did have his struggles, particularly with finishing on breakaways, but it should be clear that he was turned into the teams scapegoat despite not doing anything truly wrong. While he did have his finishing issues, Kuznetsov retained 1st line minutes despite having far more trouble with his finishing, while Mantha became a healthy scratch after being easily the best offensive player on his line. In fact, before this scratching, he was on a healthy 50 point pace DESPITE being on a line with an offensive black hole named Lars Eller.

Finally, it is quite easy to see that once McMichael (Laviolette's original scapegoat) was sent down off the team, Mantha was going to become the whipping boy regardless of his current play. Laviolette's deployment choices throughout the year, even now with Mantha getting time with Craig Smith, make it obvious that he had decided Mantha would take the fall this year. Management in Washington, as reported by Tarik El-Bashir, was not happy with Laviolette's decision to bench Mantha and ever since, he's not had a chance to play back into significant minutes before the entire team decided to check out in mid-February. There has been absolutely no reports of Washington considering trading Mantha, and to compare him to a fourth liner who can't even play defense well like Armia is a grossly mis-informed take. To say that Mantha should cost Washington a 1st or a 2nd+prospect to dump, when worse players like Mrazek only cost Toronto moving down 10 or so draft spots, is an insane reach especially when GMs aren't stupid and can easily see exactly what I just laid out here.

Then Keep him , no one else wants him
Now i get why fans get mad at us about Anderson trades
I know our fans our delusional at times though , i didnt expect other teams to be this blinded

The Athletic covered it as did a bunch of others. Make your life easier go to Google Tools in your search and specify the last year.
All those articles from the Vrana /Mantha trade for years ago disappear as most of the focus is on how both players failed to find success after the traded severly declining in new systems.

Armia plays anywhere and no where .
4th line one night 1st line the next .
Whether he scores or not he's got value
I'd take him over Mantha 10/10 even a banged up Armia like he's been since he helped lead us to a SCF .
Why? Because he can help lead us to a SCF even from a lesser role while Mantha cant make a playoff and score a goal at the same time. . . .
Armia >Mantha because he shows up and doesnt make excuses .


This isnt a 1 year drop like you suggest this is what a 4 year deline at a steady pace over 2 teams.
Mantha's running out of excuses and WSH running out of lies to tell people while they trade him on this site all day long .

That being said , im going to go apologize to Windjammer .
Suddenly i get how annoying those Anderson trades must have been for him

Saying I'm delusional while also claiming you'd take Armia over Mantha is heavily Ironic, but moving past that:
Did you not read a single thing I saw? Those Athletic articles (which I have already read) were almost entirely opinion pieces that have now aged poorly, especially with recent reports by people like Tarik El-Bashir that management was unhappy with how the coaching staff handled the situation rule many of the speculations, such as Mantha playing bad due to being dis-engaged, off the table and pretty much placing blame of the situation disintegrating on the hands of Laviolette. Once again, if you look through Mantha's time in Washington, he has been far from a downward slope over his first year and a half, so I have absolutely no problem keeping him. I am merely showing that the notion that he's been terrible across his entire time in DC is completely false and that Washington paying a 1st or 2nd+prospect to dump him is foolish to expect, especially when, again, players like Mrazek who had played worse have been moved for less. It is important to understand how he's gotten here in DC, instead of just going off of his previous narratives with his clashes with a garbage coach in Blashill.

I claimed you were delusional too in all fairness i included MTL fans specifically so you couldnt play the Victim card you've relied on heavily to make your points thus far.
I read all you said i just have a habit of fact checking peoples claims and seen most of your was as you stated "opinion pieces"
I then had to ask myself who the source was reporting it and if i trust them more then you , as much as you or less then you.
What i came back with is you're just as credible in many was , really almost all with 1 defining difference. . . . They actually have relationships with the people they're speaking about.
You on the other hand line myself hold everything up to scrutiny and try to provide Context for situations and for lack of better terms explain how the Domino's fall.
Issue is you're taking out of play the skater himself , his history and the forecasted projection.

To make this simplist you're like David Backes fans for years insisting it was everyone and everything else leading to his Fall from grace.
In the end it was a combination of he's too beat up coupled with him trying to alter his game to adapt without consideration the league doesnt care about his situation in the sense that their styles for many years brutalized players who are all to happy to return the favor now. Even if their injuries dont get them , their past doesnt catch up and they're highly motivated the odds of staying only go up if like Milan Lucic you resort to Fighting Full Time and being a Typical Enforcer of Note.

Mantha if he could fight i'd disregard everything as those types of Role players not only fighters but guys like Matt Cullen,Phil Kessel and Eric Staal who've taken on 3rd and 4th line roles playing a different style of game so they could stay in the NHL all have Heart and are Team Leaders who carry a lot of Pride . If Mantha was any of those things then year sure a going on 4 full years of decline . . . Those ar ethe longest of odds back to being anything

I watched Mantha in Junior , when isnt he disengaged?
Only time he stepped up was when he felt threatened by someone lesser .
Jaskin he took so personally going hit for hit , goal for goal .
Ironically Jaskins a KHL leader today and Mantha's a declining NHL player increasingly beat up and never shows up in any playoffs as a goal scorer being overpaid to score goals.

It doesn't take a genius to see this situation, and none of those articles mention anything concerning genuine evidence that he's "given up", merely the same speculation that circulates here every day. If you want actual sources, I've referenced him before and I'd suggest you go back to Tarik El-Bashir's mailbag's in which he has, in the best way possible, described how management was disappointed with coaching's handling of Mantha's situation.

With this, coupled with watching him throughout the year as everyone else has, I find it hard to see where you get this overarching "he's been bad for 4 years" thing, since it just isn't true. If you go back a year, you'll see plenty of people lauding Mantha's strong regular season and you can also see it in his strong start when joining Washington (though that may be harder to sift through all the emotional "we shouldn't have traded Vrana" responses). He was far from a bad player in Washington before this season, and again, given all the players coming out against Laviolette (Orlov, Vrana, etc), it's not hard to draw the logical line from Mantha's struggles to Laviolette's past his prime coaching. Hell, if we're gauging engagement by getting physical (which he's jumped into scrums and such plenty of times this year if that's what you're on about), then your standards mean half the league is disengaged. He's been playing just as hard as the pluggers in need of a contract like Smith despite the limited amount of ice time, I know it's difficult to gauge without being in the arena to see it (which I don't blame anybody who can't get to see the games for, it's tough enough to stream the damn games at this point), but being able to evaluate his play as it happens, and when able to focus on him the entire time, the narrative laid by coaching falls apart.

When there's problems all around with the coaching, and seeing how Mantha rises and falls with them this year (though similar failures and scoring droughts from players like Eller, Sheary, Kuznetsov, and others should be taken into consideration), I can acknowledge that it's hard to differentiate one from another. But these coaching failures, coupled with management clashing with coaching on issues (reported by El-Bashir) and players like Orlov and Vrana speaking out against Laviolette and his coaching decisions (RMNB is probably the easiest place to find these but be warned, their website kind of sucks), I find it hard to pass up holding the coach accountable to instead place the blame on a guy who was on a decent scoring pace on a garbage line before being scratched, especially when you consider that he played well in the last year and stepped up in the playoffs playing a role he didn't normally play (played the assist man well while Backstrom was ailing and Wilson was hurt, with Ovi and Oshie taking the goal scoring reigns during the playoffs).

Neither do you though TBH
You've placed yourself above those who actually interact with the guy

Where i can be objective and reign in my opinions as just that when confronted
You seem to double down so i stopped reading after "It doesn't take a genius to see this situation, and none of those articles mention anything concerning genuine evidence "

If you cant draw the line between Fact and Opinion anymore im out.
I'll gladly listen to your Opinon and weigh it against fact as i do with all others
But indulging someone who doesnt recognize that people in a position to actually meet and see these athlete's would have Insights and Knowledge that you wouldnt , i just cant do that.


Im sure you probably have a lot of valid points but i cant listen to someone who appoints themself an Authority above Professionals .
Its like listening to a Pro Wrestling Fan claim with no training he could get in the Ring , Sure ... but who will pay to see it or value the experience ?

Anyways have a really nice day , its been a pleasure for the most part .

That was one of those main points, no reporter who's interacted with him has any proof that the guy is "disengaged". 'm not sure how you came to the conclusion that I somehow value myself above those caps reporters, since I've constantly cited the most credible one in my argument. I have used those articles to show that there isn't any evidence they've brought to say that, and thus people on social media wo run with narratives they craft don't have actual reports to back it up. If you read my last posts, you'll see I reference El-Bashir, interviews with former players about Laviolette, and even stats and trends from other players this year. My conclusion is, of course, my opinion, but to say that I don't regard actual reporters when they don't have anything to say about Mantha's engagement (see Pell, El-Bashir, is just not true.

Dude i heard what you said , i understand you POV i just stopped humoring it as i said above as its built on Prioritizing your opinion over Fact and for that matter Journalistic Experience and their Opinion.
Once you lose my ability to trust i tune out no exceptions , i cant humor someone who puts themselves and their POV above those actually interacting with them.
Media is in the lockeroom talking to them a lot i can tell you from being at a game in MTL in the Lockeroom because i knew the Assistant Coach at the time .
These guys talk more off the record then on then the Camera's get fired up and the room get quieter with the on the record questions.
Its not sit down Interviews but instead them immersed him that teams hockey culture of which they're apart of to a degree.

I didnt realize until just now you likely think the Press all sit outside like they do for the Coaches and Post Game Interviews
But they spend more time in that lockeroom then Coaches do more often then not .

So no i wont humor someone disregarding their experience or trying to equate their opinions as Equal.
They're not as one's an Informed Opinion and one is not.
Until we can establish a baseline like the Media's Experience > Fans then there's a real disconnect.
Then again unlike you that Assistant Coach returned from MTL back home and if i made such assertions like you did he corrects me .

Again though i say i'm done reading / Humoring
As clearly intelligent as your are , you've let it place your own experiences over those actually talking to the players daily by comparison.
Until thats addressed its harder to trust what you say as it all seems so logical until you realize its just because you're eliminating anything you dont agree with un-objectively .
I get why to an extent as most people with an Article today are Columnists not Journalists with a focus on Clicks/Views/Like over Integrity and Fact.
But at the end of the day even if only every 3/10 writers are Legit , thats still more then the 1/1000 ratio of fans being right.

What? Again, where am I prioritizing my opinion over that of journalists? My biggest source for my own argument is about the most credible Caps reporter you can find, who's likely the most well connected as well. There's no need to try and explain the basics of how these journalists operate because obviously they spend time in the locker room and I've spoken with Caps reporters in the past on that very subject, I'm saying that there aren't journalists that are giving any credence to this narrative that's been largely, if not completely, propagated by fans and fan sites. If you can find sources that claim he's disinterested, then by all means, link them to me, as I'll be more than happy to read through them. As of now, I've seen no such rumor validated by any sort of journalist, unlike the reports of Kuznetsov's friction with management. What I have been citing has been well reported by El-Bashir, as well through genuine player interviews, like the one by Orlov stating his frustration with Laviolette scratching Alexeyev in favor of Irwin earlier in the year. So I find it disappointing that you've decided to build up a strawman about me "favoring my own opinion over fact" when I have been consistently citing reports from credible sources and former players.