Our future is a lot more than just those 4. I know you believe Norris will bounce back but even in the worst case that he doesn't, he's still a useful piece to have. And if you're going to write off Batherson you can't do it without factoring the capital that he represents. I don't think there is reason to believe he won't be resigned though and with the cap significantly up by then we should be able to make the money work. 3 years is a long way away to start pretending like a crystal ball sees all, a lot can and will happen by then.
ok but can you make a list then? Like I was already starting to talk in 2020-21, the clock is ticking. Thomas Chabot is now 27 years old, there was a big chat years ago that Taylor Hall had never played in the playoffs, he finally did it at 26 years old, which is younger than our initial star is now lol
I don't "believe" Norris will bounce back, I just hope he does. He is still still young and has time ahead of him, concluding that there's no chance he will bounce back is what is foolish. If he doesn't bounce back, yeah he's useful but a good 2-way 25 goals 50 pts center at 8 M$? People are going to see it a bit like they used to see Colin White
Regarding Batherson, we will possibly be able to extend him but he won't give a discount this time. He will be 29 y/o the first year of his next contract, an age where forwards usually exit their prime.
It's not about crystal balls and everything, it's about being realistic. We haven't made the playoffs YET, we still need to wait one more year. If we make it next season, are we going to be good right away or there will be some growing pains like the Oilers, Leafs, Ligthning, Avalanche, etc?
Let's say we are a playoffs team AND competitive in them by 2026-27, Giroux will be 39, Batherson in the last year of his deal, Tarasenko will be long gone or declined, Chabot will be 30 y/o, Zub will be UFA and 31, Tkachuk will have 1 year left, etc.
So our future is like I said, Stutzle, Tkachuk, Pinto and Greig, AND possibly Batherson and Norris if they bounce back or don't decline/stay. Let's hope we find a gem or two in the draft by that time.
We need a lot of things to start going the right way for us, we basically just flushed 3 seasons down the drain by perpetuating something that clearly didn't work (DJ + Dorion), that's a lot of time wasted
This is impossible to deny but our drafting since 2020 has been poor largely because we banked 1 possibly 2 of our first rounders until this year. We have the Debrincat first coming up and yeah it sucks that we traded down on the 2022 7th for no reason but that upcoming pick still represents an improvement to our prospect pool. The same goes for Chychrun.
Some of our best value picks recently have been in the late first / early second and we will be going back to the well in that range this year. It's possible we have four of those coming up with Detroit/Bostons, Tarasenko, possibly Chychrun and our own second. Thats on top of our first this year. 5 picks in the top 38 or so is a good way to make up for lost time. What you're saying about our drafting since 2020 can't ignore that we pushed some of the draft capital down the road and that we will profit to some degree from our piss poor season at the TDL.
So yeah, it ebbs and flows. Right now it is ebbing but in 5 months it's going to feel different.
This pick situation with the 2022 7th OA pick is a bit like the Duchene situation. We ended up trading away the 4th OA pick (Byram or Seider, Cozens, Boldy, Zegras, Caufield,, etc) but got the 19th OA pick where we could have off-set this gigantic loss but came out with... Lassi Thomson.
Hopefully this time we swing an homerun with the Bruins pick... because look who was available around the 7th OA pick in 2022 : Korchinski, Kasper, Savoie, Mintyukov, Kemell, Lekkerimaki, Nazar, Yurov, Lambert, etc... There was a lot of very good choices.
We really need to have a big draft as it's going to be 4 years already... not a league you can afford that
As for Chychrun, even if he hasn't been at his best in Ottawa yet, he's still there and worth the investment (12th OA + 2nd + 2nd), although the LHD vs RHD thing is not ideal. Wait and see until we see what happens with this... reasonable extension (around 7.0 AAV) or traded? If traded, then for what?
I'm not saying all this just to disagree with you or anything and we do agree on some stuff, I'm just voicing some of our concerns. Every time Ottawa had a bit of success, it came on the back of really solid drafting. Even the 2012-13, 2014-15 and 2016-17 seasons came on the back of 4 drafts from 2008-2011... heck even now a big part of our future is on the back of these drafts (Karlsson and Pageau trades : Stutzle, Norris, Sogaard, Merilainen, Ostapchuk, Greig, Kleven)
We really need to go back to this being our strength, something we have lost track on for 3 years already. I like the point that we have already 3 picks in the Top-40 and possibly add another with Tarasenko and possibly an even better one by trading Chychrun... We'll see I guess, this trade deadline is going to be really interesting for us.
