Todd Cordell
I’ll start with St. Louis. They’re a contending team and Justin Faulk is a better player than Joel Edmundson. It’s a good trade for them in that respect. In saying that, Faulk is vastly overrated. His best attribute is point production and it’s more of a byproduct of opportunity than efficiency. He needs to be in A1 situations to produce and even then his totals are nothing to write home about. Faulk takes a lot of bad shots and, defensively, he can be unstable at times. Upgrade over Edmundson? Again, yes. Worth $6.5 million on a long-term deal? Certainly not, though I get he might be looked at as Alex Pietrangelo insurance.
From Carolina’s perspective, I like the deal. Faulk’s role was diminishing and they weren’t going to pay to re-sign him. They shed some necessary salary, fetched an adequate depth replacement, and landed a quality forward prospect who could soon be able to contribute while pulling in less than 900K annually. That’s valuable, especially when you’re close to a cap team and want to contend in the coming years.
I understand why both teams made the deal but prefer Carolina’s end of it.
Sean Maloughney In terms of the assets given, the Blues did fairly well in terms of the actual trade itself. However to turn around right after and sign Faulk 7 year, 6.5 million dollar deal is Chiarelli levels of poor management (looks at Blues staffing... oh right he is there now).
Faulk can be a real asset, when used properly. He is not a defense first player and is often on the wrong side of positive possession. Signing a player like that to a long term contract is a massive risk, especially when you have two fantastic right shots already. Either the plan is to move on from Pietrangelo after his contract expires or the team will run Faulk on the third pair which seems like a waste of 6.5 million dollars a year.
Recent posts