Free Agent Failures

The Tomas Kaberle trade saga ended this week when the Carolina Hurricanes shipped him to the Montreal Canadians on Friday.  Kaberle is just one example of players who switched teams over this summer and was unable to succeed with their new team.  With only 9 assists and no goals in 29 games with the Hurricanes, Kaberle was clearly not meeting the expectations brought upon him when he signed this summer. In this post, I am going to talk about other players who switched teams over the summer and have had terrible starts to this season.

Ville Leino- After having a couple successful playoffs with the Philadelphia Flyers, Leino hit the market as a popular forward for teams to chase after.  The Buffalo Sabres won his services with a 6 year deal that averages out to be a $4.5 million cap hit but with his play right now, they should not be impressed.  In 28 games this season, Leino only has 3 goals and 7 assists for 10 points along with a minus 6 rating.  Those are not very good stats for someone expected to be a top goal scorer. 

Andy Sutton- The Ducks shipped Sutton to the Edmonton Oilers for Kurtis Foster over the summer and Sutton has been nothing but a problem for his new team.  He is expected to play aggressive but he has already been suspended for a total of 13 games this season for dirty hits.  This puts the Oilers in a difficult position because if Sutton keeps getting suspended, he will need to become a permanent scratch in order to not be a burden on the team.  The Oilers have many young prospects that could fill his spot so if Sutton keeps playing reckless, he could find himself replaced.

Devin Setoguchi- Setoguchi was brought in by the Minnesota Wild in exchange for Brent Burns in the hopes that he would become a powerful offensive player.  The Wild have had an excellent start to the season but Setoguchi has not with only 8 goals and 5 assists in 28 games.  The Wild are lucky other players like Dany Heatley and Mikko Koivu have had better starts but the Wild would really like Setoguchi to score like he did while with the San Jose Sharks. 

These players are all experiencing poor performances that have lasted longer than usual. As teams approach 30 games it starts to become clearer who will have a good season and who will have a bad one.  In the case of Kaberle, his poor play resulted in a trade after only 29 games with Carolina.  Its always interesting to look back at the players who signed big in order to play big and to see where they are now. 

Feel free to comment below this post or email me at josh@jbenny.com. You can follow me on Twitter at @jbenny15 and visit my website at www.jbenny.com. Thanks for reading.