Speculation: 2023-2024 General Lightning Discussion - Part 3

[These Are The Days]

it does have potential, but using the idea that we missed out on Hanafin as a reason to trust JBB even more... It just makes no sense. You're saying JBB didn't get the guy he was actually trying to get, but didn't have the assets to get, and therefore you trust him more because he wasn't able to make the thing happen that he was trying to make happen?

I mean, we all have weird takes from time to time, but man, you have to stop doubling down on trying to disprove the obvious, or prove the ridiculous. Not saying it's a knock on JBB that we missed Hanafin. Just saying it makes no sense whatsoever to say that somehow is a credit to JBB

It's more like I keep forgetting how absolutely terrible we play until I watch the team again. And when I've had time between games I think "Come on we can win it all"


Lather rinse repeat

 

[The Gongshow]

The team is missing too many key peices to actually compete and has too man bad contracts to make moves

 

[DFC]

It's more like I keep forgetting how absolutely terrible we play until I watch the team again. And when I've had time between games I think "Come on we can win it all"


Lather rinse repeat

We're only beating terrible teams + Boston, who've been a badly matched against us for years.

I think, objectively, it's hard to say the core of the team doesn't have a few more years. Hedman isn't Hedmonster, but he's still a #1 D with great offense. Kucherov and Point... honestly, I don't even care what they do in the regular season. They could both put up 20 points next year and I'd still believe either of them can win a Conn Smyth.

Vasy... well, he's got to show us something next year. But the odds aren't crazily against it happening.

So yeah, we still have a core we can build around. It doesn't require the most insane of hot takes to have faith in the future.

BUT, JBB needs to make more moves that work out, and fewer moves that leave us scratching our heads.

 

[The Gongshow]

We're only beating terrible teams + Boston, who've been a badly matched against us for years.

I think, objectively, it's hard to say the core of the team doesn't have a few more years. Hedman isn't Hedmonster, but he's still a #1 D with great offense. Kucherov and Point... honestly, I don't even care what they do in the regular season. They could both put up 20 points next year and I'd still believe either of them can win a Conn Smyth.

Vasy... well, he's got to show us something next year. But the odds aren't crazily against it happening.

So yeah, we still have a core we can build around. It doesn't require the most insane of hot takes to have faith in the future.

BUT, JBB needs to make more moves that work out, and fewer moves that leave us scratching our heads.

Hedman is also 33 and will be 34 next year and has most definetly taken a step back. He needs less minutes so they can save him for the playoffs. That's why Hanafin would have been perfect.

It comes down to Vasy. Sure, his defense infront of him bas been terrible, but he has also been terrible. It's been 2 years now and there's been some injuries, but if Vasy is not back to his regular self and looks bad next year it's all over. He's the piece to the teams success. If he's cooked then they either need to find a goalie, move him, or just continue to ride off into the sunset with this team and miss playoffs for a few years until the core retires, ages out, rebuild starts

 

[Flat Ronnie]

The team is missing too many key peices to actually compete and has too man bad contracts to make moves

Stamkos is coming off the books and Cirelli/Cernak/Serge can all be traded immediately if they wanted to. The only contract we are locked into is Vasy.

It could be WAY worse.

 

[The Gongshow]

Stamkos is coming off the books and Cirelli/Cernak/Serge can all be traded immediately if they wanted to. The only contract we are locked into is Vasy.

It could be WAY worse.

I don't get why people on these boards are so locked in on Cirelli, Cernak and Serg. Their contracts are all overpaid and one or two should be moved. Theyve handcuffed the team.

I give Vasy 1 more year to see if he can turn it all around. No injuries. Full offseason. Get in the right headspace. If he comes out looking like he has the last 2 years then the team is truly done. Cause you're right, they aren't getting out of that contract and would be pretty screwed

 

[aylib]

Height on D has been a fetish of this organization for like two decades now. It can't be just Cooper, we haven't had a defenseman under 6 ft in forever.

I was trying to figure out why Crozier, who has been as solid as anyone on the backend, has been playing the least amount of minutes


NM: listed at 6’2

 

[Tampa22]

I understand now why Sustr has to many chances here, even after suck in all of his career, a couple of seasons ago they sign again.

 

[DFC]

Hedman is also 33 and will be 34 next year and has most definetly taken a step back. He needs less minutes so they can save him for the playoffs. That's why Hanafin would have been perfect.

It comes down to Vasy. Sure, his defense infront of him bas been terrible, but he has also been terrible. It's been 2 years now and there's been some injuries, but if Vasy is not back to his regular self and looks bad next year it's all over. He's the piece to the teams success. If he's cooked then they either need to find a goalie, move him, or just continue to ride off into the sunset with this team and miss playoffs for a few years until the core retires, ages out, rebuild starts

I mean, Hedman has taken a step back, but he's still objectively a #1D. Just not top 5ish, or inarguably the best, as he was in the cup years. But I think he still has a couple of years where he's good enough to be the best defenseman on a contender.

Agreed that he will need help though, more than before, and Hanafin likely would have gone a long way. Almost impossible to think we aren't going to need to find that help from outside the organization.

 

[Flat Ronnie]

I don't get why people on these boards are so locked in on Cirelli, Cernak and Serg. Their contracts are all overpaid and one or two should be moved. Theyve handcuffed the team.

I give Vasy 1 more year to see if he can turn it all around. No injuries. Full offseason. Get in the right headspace. If he comes out looking like he has the last 2 years then the team is truly done. Cause you're right, they aren't getting out of that contract and would be pretty screwed

It doesn't matter what people on here think of these players, what matters is we are not locked into these contracts yet. They can be moved at any time.

 

[The Gongshow]

It doesn't matter what people on here think of these players, what matters is we are not locked into these contracts yet. They can be moved at any time.

I think Coop and JBB are also under the belief of keeping them. JBB has to see he messed up and trade at least one, but he's probably too stubborn for that

 

[DrMartinVanNostrand]

Stamkos is coming off the books and Cirelli/Cernak/Serge can all be traded immediately if they wanted to. The only contract we are locked into is Vasy.

It could be WAY worse.

To be very clear, I have no problem moving any of them. The problem is finding takers. You're talking guys who still have 7 years left on their contracts (you can add Paul to this list and he has 6 years to go). It's difficult to imagine getting much in the way of a good return other than cap relief from trading overpaid players with massive term, and then you have the problem of needing to actually replace them...like, as much as I think Sergachev is massively overrated, it's still going to cost a decent amount to replace his minutes and performance.

 

[The Gongshow]

To be very clear, I have no problem moving any of them. The problem is finding takers. You're talking guys who still have 7 years left on their contracts (you can add Paul to this list and he has 6 years to go). It's difficult to imagine getting much in the way of a good return other than cap relief from trading overpaid players with massive term, and then you have the problem of needing to actually replace them...like, as much as I think Sergachev is massively overrated, it's still going to cost a decent amount to replace his minutes and performance.

Agreed, there's not many suitors cause JBB was careless with these signings

 

[DrMartinVanNostrand]

Agreed, there's not many suitors cause JBB was careless with these signings

It bothers me to think about because around this time two years ago I remember thinking about the payroll situation with this team, and thinking that we had just about zero legitimately "bad" contracts on the books. The most questionable contract we had was probably McDonagh's, who I think still had four years left after that season and you could argue his overall performance and trajectory wasn't likely to maintain it's value over that time. (I would personally say McDonagh's playoff performances alone justified his salaries, fwiw.) We were still gonna end up getting squeezed by the flat cap because we had pay raises due for players who we couldn't accommodate, but I found it easier to live with "flat cap screwed us" over "we screwed ourselves".

Fast forward to now - really, FF just a few months later but it's even more apparent now - and we're littered with questionable contracts. I can forgive the Vasi contract a bit, maybe questionable to go all-in on a goaltender because sometimes goalies just break and what can you do, but for a while it looked like a wise move to lock him in during his should-be-prime years. Cernak for eight years was questionable but I thought the AAV was ok. Cirelli for $6.25M x 8 was really questionable. Sergachev for $8.5M x 8 was a ridiculous leap of faith. It's like we would still talk about Sergachev as this green prospect with unlimited upside when in reality he had played five seasons of NHL + an entire seasons' worth of games in the playoffs and he was still prone to making rookie mistakes in his fifth season. And JBB thought "yep, he's gonna ascend still". That was the worst contract, easily, Sergachev had never shown to be that level of player. And now we're hamstrung with anywhere from 2-4 bad contracts hanging around our necks for the next while to come, chewing up ~$17M-$30M of our cap space in the process.

I don't want to use the phrase "breath of fresh wind" too easily when talking about JBB at first because that feels massively disrespectful to the work Yzerman did, but what JBB did do at first was show more boldness at going out and making moves to try and put us over the top, and with Coleman and Goodrow it's hard to argue against that. The Hagel move in 2022 was also very good even if it didn't pay off during that playoff run. Ever since then, JBB has way more misses than hits, and that's no small part of the reason we find ourselves where we do today. There was always going to be a decline following the great run we had, some of that was unavoidable no matter what we did, but those decisions have accelerated the process. It's going to take some real creativity to turn this around and get us into another Cup contention season or two with this core before it's too late. This off-season cannot have the idea of "run it back" anywhere, this particular team has run stale and needs work.

 

[PJ817]

I don't want to use the phrase "breath of fresh wind" too easily when talking about JBB at first because that feels massively disrespectful to the work Yzerman did, but what JBB did do at first was show more boldness at going out and making moves to try and put us over the top, and with Coleman and Goodrow it's hard to argue against that. The Hagel move in 2022 was also very good even if it didn't pay off during that playoff run. Ever since then, JBB has way more misses than hits, and that's no small part of the reason we find ourselves where we do today.

Exactly. He took Yzerman's gorgeous built house and added a few key pieces to help us Back-To-Back.

BUT then it's like he got arrogant and thought he was the wheeler dealer he is not; he forgot about the players themselves.

What he did to McD was ... crap. And that was just the start of it.

Destroy team chemistry, destroy the team.

It won't matter who we get until the chemistry is fixed. We cannot simply lose:

Pally, Gourde, Killer, Big Rig - who had ALL played for Coop at one time or another - AND McD and replace with bad trades, 4th liners, and worse and expect us to be a Cup contender (or even in the playoffs this year).

I understand the math behind a lot of it but JBB scouting team is trash (I don't think Howard is a fit for a Stammer / Heddy / Kuch led team). JBB's ability to manage the $$ is one thing but he's forgotten what makes a team a team.

Coop can only do so much with what he's given and Coop's been given a @#$t show for players... and done the best he can given the injuries on top of the non-performing adds by JBB.

 

[CupsOverCash]

Meh move. I think we need more if we're gonna compete with some of the others for this season. Not saying it can't happen but what we've seen over this season doesn't match the competition this year and alot of the competition has gotten better from the deadline moves. It's just probably not our year. I'm kinda surprised jbb gave up some assets when it was kinda clear yesterday this team isn't in it at least for this year. I'm sure it's not a move just for this year and if we see another move today. It's mostly for the future but we will see. I do think the team can come together and do some damage. Some things need to change tho.

 

[Crunchrulz]

Which is a better name for our defense…
1. The Glass Factory
2. Backend Tissue.

???

3. Gone But Not Forgotten.

 

[DFC]

Exactly. He took Yzerman's gorgeous built house and added a few key pieces to help us Back-To-Back.

BUT then it's like he got arrogant and thought he was the wheeler dealer he is not; he forgot about the players themselves.

What he did to McD was ... crap. And that was just the start of it.

Destroy team chemistry, destroy the team.

It won't matter who we get until the chemistry is fixed. We cannot simply lose:

Pally, Gourde, Killer, Big Rig - who had ALL played for Coop at one time or another - AND McD and replace with bad trades, 4th liners, and worse and expect us to be a Cup contender (or even in the playoffs this year).

I understand the math behind a lot of it but JBB scouting team is trash (I don't think Howard is a fit for a Stammer / Heddy / Kuch led team). JBB's ability to manage the $$ is one thing but he's forgotten what makes a team a team.

Coop can only do so much with what he's given and Coop's been given a @#$t show for players... and done the best he can given the injuries on top of the non-performing adds by JBB.

I agree with most of this, although I do think JBB deserves a little bit more benefit of the doubt. I have quite strongly disagreed with several decisions -- I don't like how we let McDonagh go, mainly, because I would rather have bet on him rebounding than bet on finding someone to fill his shoes. But it was kind of an "embarrassment of riches" type of cap crunch, made worse by the COVID cap years, so I understand that hard decisions had to be made even if I didn't agree with them.

The Jeannot trade is hard to excuse, honestly. It was just SO many pieces that might have been used to help this year or next year, for ONE GUY who hadn't proven much. It was kind of a kamikaze move that missed the target, and I think that one makes him more fair game to criticism now, because... I mean, we might be in a very different position if we had those assets available right now, and especially in this coming off-season, when we might finally get out of cap hell.

 

[Zwui21]

Would really like if we took a chance with Brannstrom, I could see him rebound and be a good LHD for us. He definitely got some untapped potential and shouldn't cost much.

 

[Master P]

Did you guys know that the Jeannot trade was bad?

 

[These Are The Days]

Well, we got halfway decent players without selling anything of value. It allows us to *sort of* compete this year and contend for next year and not at the expense of our future. The players we got are like C+ but the petty value we gave up for it was A+

I'm hard pressed to say JFBB could have done any better. If Hanifin signs here this will end up being a master class in asset management

 

[JTBF81]

Well, we got halfway decent players without selling anything of value. It allows us to *sort of* compete this year and contend for next year and not at the expense of our future. The players we got are like C+ but the petty value we gave up for it was A+

I'm hard pressed to say JFBB could have done any better. If Hanifin signs here this will end up being a master class in asset management

Yeah, Hanifin making it to ufa and signing with Tampa is what decides if this tdl was a big win for JBB and the team, or a very big failure imo.

 

[These Are The Days]

Yeah, Hanifin making it to ufa and signing with Tampa is what decides if this tdl was a big win for JBB and the team, or a very big failure imo.

I think Hanifin is staying in Vegas. But that doesn't take away from what JFBB did. We got about 48 cents for 2 old nickels and a penny I'm okay with it

 

[JTBF81]

I think Hanifin is staying in Vegas. But that doesn't take away from what JFBB did. We got about 48 cents for 2 old nickels and a penny I'm okay with it

I disagree. While Duclair and Dumba are okay, especially if Duclair re-signs, if Hanifin stays in Vegas then JBB failed almost as bad as the Jeannot trade, maybe even worse. The fact that he wanted to play in Tampa, and that an extension was seemingly done, makes JBB's unwillingness to pay what was needed a terrible move if he extends elsewhere. The fact that he only ended up netting Calgary what amounted to arguably weaker or equal pieces to what Tampa could have paid is even more bewildering. JBB has paid the assets needed.every rime, but now, when a top pairing dman wants to come to your team by all accounts, that 1st round pick 3 drafts away, surplus roster dman and an additional pick was just too much this time around....

 

[These Are The Days]

I disagree. While Duclair and Dumba are okay, especially if Duclair re-signs, if Hanifin stays in Vegas then JBB failed almost as bad as the Jeannot trade, maybe even worse. The fact that he wanted to play in Tampa, and that an extension was seemingly done, makes JBB's unwillingness to pay what was needed a terrible move if he extends elsewhere. The fact that he only ended up netting Calgary what amounted to arguably weaker or equal pieces to what Tampa could have paid is even more bewildering. JBB has paid the assets needed.every rime, but now, when a top pairing dman wants to come to your team by all accounts, that 1st round pick 3 drafts away, surplus roster dman and an additional pick was just too much this time around....

He's made a few mistakes but we still have all our futures. That is where the mistake would have been. Hanifin wasn't necessarily the end all be all. I don't know if we are gonna win it all this year but we are at least going to keep the window open a bit longer