The reason the time component is not specified is not so much for this vote, but for votes closer to the 5-10. If the time component was this year, JVR could easiliy rank below Danny Briere, but with no time period specified, he could easily rank above him. I definitely see your point of contention, and I’m not exactly sure how to make it perfectly clear, so all I can say is that the players with more value in the future (such as Giroux) need to have their potential weighed against those who have more value in the present (such as Ray Emery.) That isn’t to say one is more valuable than the other, or that one doesn’t have value either now or down the line, but who out weighs the other.

When asking J.P. to take his idea, we specifically requested to use the sentence “Put another way…” nearly verbatim, since it included every aspect people could deem valuable. And from there, have the readers discuss which is more important.

I honestly hope this helps. As you have continued to say in the comments, it is very easy to see the argument for Pronger to be #1. The Cliff Lee analogy is perfect. People could argue who is most valuable to the Phillies in the same way this creates the argument here: The stud pitcher the team so badly needed (the stud defenseman the team so badly needed) vs. the all around, every day leader of the team.

From an outside perspective (and one that has been arguing in all of Japers’ votes) I’d say it’s better not to strictly define value. For one, it allows for better debate. For two, it allows you to get better insight into how your peers evaluate a team/GM. Personally, I look at the exercise as a GM, and try to keep an eye on both current product and future product. The two factors I go back to most are “who is easiest/hardest to replace?” and “if there were an expansion draft and I could only protect one of these players who would it be?” I’m getting brutally outvoted on the home-blog but it’s a fun exercise.

Gagne in bleu, blanc et rouge playing for Montreal. It’s not hard at all, just close your eyes and you can almost see it. I like Simon, I think I do.Sort of. I used to think Bobby Abreu was ok, too. At the end of the season, the point totals are right there, but his play leaves me flat. So if we dealt him north for some value and cap relief and younger players , I’d bid him a fond adieu. But knowing us it will be to Tampa Bay (is Gratton available?) or to Phoenix/Hamilton to liberate Upshall. We do love us a rerun around here.

As for me, I voted for Kimmo. We all defined value in different ways, I defined it as what would hurt worse with an injury loss. Just couldn’t get past the ECF from 2008. If Kimmo goes, it gets that much harder to break out of our zone. But I think if the question was “Who brings the most in trade?”, the Richards answer would have been it.

A potentially excellent analogy…let’s see Pronger lace up the skates for a single game before we annoint him the Flyers’ Cliff Lee. I “love” Pronger in the sense that I frickin’ hated his guts when he played for other teams…aside anecdote, he scored a killer game-tying goal against the ’Yotes when he was with Edmonton with only 1.4 seconds left off a faceoff win, absolutely crushing…

That being said, Pronger is known to do incredibly stupid things (stomping on guys’ legs, bad stick fouls, etc.)…so let’s make sure he’s not just going to add to our already terrible reputation in the league and get called for tons of penalties all the time. I’m not saying that these things will happen by any means, but there’s also no saying that he’s going to go the equivalent of 5-0 with a 0.68 ERA in his first five games here…

Yeah, I would pretty much panic if Richards went on the LTIR for the year…not that I don’t think the Flyers could still win, but man that would be losing a lot of production…and as I said somewhere on this post previously, there are not a lot of guys like Richards in this league…