LOL Ray has already righted several Conte wrongs, in the bit over 2 years that he's been here. He somehow acquited three guys that were picked just behind Jacob Josefson in the 2009 draft. It would be funny if he fixed the Tedenby over Carlson pick too. Which seemed to be a question of why, from the minute that we passed on Carlson back in June of 2008.
It really is remarkable what he's accomplished with this roster in little over 2 years, transformed in positive ways I don't think any of us could have imagined at the end of the 2014-15 season. Mostly the forwards of course but wow what a whirlwind of good fortune to replace half our top six via trade, win the #1 pick, and then have Zacha looking like a changed man and poised to really show us something in the coming season.
Ray accelerated us from a hopeless situation to one with a future out on the horizon, barring last year's awful efforts of course but we've made some key replacements since then as well. Man if we could nab a player like Carlson and Castron can nab us a gem next year amid a 1st round teeming with good defenseman then we could really be cooking with fire in a few years. Flirt with playoffs in 2019, maybe make playoffs in 2020 as the metro levels out a bit, and by 2021 I'd expect some contention so long as we get our top 4 sorted aside from Severson.
Schneider should still be effective within that timeframe and hopefully we'll resign Hall. Other than that it's all about solidifying our top 4 D and planning ahead to maintain an effective bottom 6, which already looks to have improved a great deal compared to recent years. I realize we have a RW to plan for where Stafford will be playing this year too but I'm confident that will get solved in time. In the meantime he looked like an excellent pickup so far in preseason, easily outperformed my expectations.