Honestly if Lindholm and Backlund sign I think we could be pretty decent. Coronato, Duehr and Pelletier could add a little up front. Kylington can hopefully come back and cover for the loss of Hanifin.
Get Buffalo's first and a prospect for Hanifin, a late first for Toffoli and we should have 3 pretty nice pieces to add to the 18-20 group that I think is the area of biggest need organizationally.
I think we could be a low-key good team that could make some noise for the next 3-4 years if Huberdeau and Kadri can bounce back. Like you said we are going to be in tough after but that might be the best thing at that point.
If we lose Backlund and Lindholm though we are screwed.... All the upcoming UFAs must go by the trade deadline.
But why would that ever be our goal? That’s literally worst case scenario for any team. Pretty decent, ok prospect pool, led by overpaid vets. Not to mention that we missed the playoffs last year while Toffoli was our leading scorer and Hanifin our top-pair LD. Sure Coronato and Pelletier could add a bit and Kylington cou mostly replace Hanifin, but we’d stilll be a borderline playoff team at best.
I just don’t get why we’d wanna sell a few guys and then keep other veterans just to be decent for a few years and prolong the inevitable. We’ve been given a chance for a large-scale retool, we know we’re a mediocre team, we still have 4 pieces with significant value. This is an absolute blessing in disguise. Half-assing this to stay ‘pretty decent’ would be the best way to mess it all up.
If this were the NBA and 3 starters told the team they weren’t gonna re-sign we’d already have traded them all for a total of 5/6 firsts, all the drama would be last weeks news, and the narrative would shift to how we’re set on building for the future and have tons of assets to work with. We need to follow through on this once-in-a-decade opportunity to retool and dangle our still very valuable assets.
