I was generally supportive of what Murray did, but I'm really starting to think that "rushing the rebuild" set us back. I make the ROR trade every day and twice on Sunday's, but you look at teams like Tampa and Pittsburgh (recently, not dating back to 08-09), and one thing they have in common is that they seem to have an influx of youth coming into the NHL at the same time and making an impact. Tampa seemingly had guys like the triplets coming from all over the place, and Pittsburgh was able to give their bottom 6 incredible depth (rust, kunhkackl, Wilson, etc) as well as supplement their top 6 with guys like sheary and guentzel.They're playing like ****, because maybe they are ****. This is the team Murray put together. He was the worst hire in the history of this teams franchise.
We've passed panic and now we should be into acceptance.Time to panic yet?
But he's fun.Smug, insufferable stats bros were right, unfortunately: Ristolainen is bad.
I was generally supportive of what Murray did, but I'm really starting to think that "rushing the rebuild" set us back. I make the ROR trade every day and twice on Sunday's, but you look at teams like Tampa and Pittsburgh (recently, not dating back to 08-09), and one thing they have in common is that they seem to have an influx of youth coming into the NHL at the same time and making an impact. Tampa seemingly had guys like the triplets coming from all over the place, and Pittsburgh was able to give their bottom 6 incredible depth (rust, kunhkackl, Wilson, etc) as well as supplement their top 6 with guys like sheary and guentzel.
Imagine if we didn't trade for Kane, kept some of those picks and prospects we had, made some better picks instead of scrubs like cornel and karabacek (jury is still out more on him), maybe traded less for cam talbot instead of lehner...it could be very possible that we would see a similar effect.
Botts realizes this, and that's why I think he'll right the ship...eventually. It's going to take time to restock the cupboard a little bit, and integrate that into Rochester rather than a team that's vet-heavy. I just hope people don't lose patience with him, because his philosophy is what breeds successful teams in the game today. Unsurprisingly, look what team he came from.
I'm not one of those posters that likes to make knee jerk reactions, or bashes Murray at every opportunity...but the "what ifs" are starting to look naturally more attractive right now
I have a hard time laying this on risto when I think every defenseman is struggling right now. Lost in the panic posts is that everyone is still picking up a new system. Repeating again, I'll worry if they still haven't put it together by December.Smug, insufferable stats bros were right, unfortunately: Ristolainen is bad.
Part of the problem is that our young prospect wingers sucked it up and didn't push for spots. Bailey, Baptiste, and Fasching were supposed to be our Sheary/Guentzel type guys, and they absolutely stunk in camp and preseason. (And Nylander too, but him being hurt certainly didn't help matters, though I'm not sure he would have stuck even if he was healthy).
If those guys stepped up (hell, even just ONE of them), all of a sudden our winger depth would look much better and allow us to roll with the Eichel/ROR/Reinhart center spine without having Pouliot/Griffith/Moulson weighing those guys down. But they showed they weren't ready, and it's created a huge hole on our roster.
Now at least next year we'll have more options: those guys plus Nylander, Middelstadt, and Asplund (and maybe even Cliff Pu). But at the end of the day, if the guys we do have who were supposed to be the secondary pieces we so desperately need don;t step up, we will continue to be screwed.