This. Probably the most annoying thing around here lately is that anyone with a realistic view of our chances gets branded as "being negative".
If I say I want to trade JVR and don't mind getting futures in return, I get stampeded by people saying I'm negative, picks might not pan out etc.
and some people even say things like "you have to take your shot when you can, we may never be in this position again" or "this is our best chance to win while the big 3 are on their ELC's".
Funny, those comments actually are what seem negative to me. I would love to get some more futures because I want our future to be something like this beginning with next season (or the one after that at worst):
- make the playoffs every year for the next 10 years
- have home advantage in the 1st round for at least 8 of those years
- make the Eastern conference finals at least 5-6 times
- make the Stanley Cup finals at least 3 times
- win the cup at least once, hoping for more than that
When the playoffs start, I'll be hoping to win the cup and cheering for that to happen as hard as anyone. I do think it's unlikely we make it to the 2nd round (definitely have a shot though) and more unlikely still that we make it past that. That's why I want to trade JVR, we have more talent on this team than we've had in the last 50 years but when we get really a good a few years from now, we won't be able to afford to keep everyone so we will need to have cheap talent coming up through the pipeline. We're in a perfect spot to sell (probably for the last time in the next 10 years) as we're locked into the playoffs and our 1st round opponent will be TB or BOS no matter what we do so let's keep our bright future in mind and cash in one last time.
So that's how I see it - probably no cup run this year but a bunch of cup runs in our very near future. If that makes me a pessimist
, so be it.