Full rebuild? hell to the no. We've already been through 4 years of partial rebuild and the market flat out can't take another 4 that will be worse then the last 4.
JR needs to step down and let someone else finish the job on the rebuild. At the very least this will stop the bleeding of prospects and picks needlessly in trades: Boucher and Alt for Pither, the two picks including a mid-rounder thrown in for Kevin ****ing Westgarth of all people, etc. There's part one of the reason that our futures are considered to be some of the worst in hockey right now, and that's WITH breakout seasons by Altshuller, Tolchinsky, and McGinn, AND after drafting Lindholm at # ****ing 5.
The second reason of that which needs to be addressed and MUST be addressed this offseason: ****ing fire the lot of them down in the AHL. Wholescale change there, no-stop. How many full time players have we had that played extensively (IE: better then half a season) under Daniels in Albany and Charlotte right now? Patrick Dwyer, Jamie McBain, Riley Nash, Drayson Bowman, Justin Peters, and Brett Bellemore? Unacceptable, especially when we've had a top 15 pick in Zach Boychuk, and another first round caliber guy in Zac Dalpe there for a while before we finally gave up on that whole idea. We need to start emulating what they're doing in Detroit, which is basically what Tampa did to speed up their turn around. Also didn't help that they're really good at that whole tanking thing but that's another matter. Anyway, replace the ENTIRE coaching staff in the AHL, and bring one in that focuses less on results at that level and one that focuses on developing the skillsets the players already have and turning them into viable NHLers going forward like Detroit does. DETROIT.
Leadership change on the team. If that means we have to do the rotating captains thing, so be it. If that teams Jordan no longer has the A, since we prettymuch universally (including JR apparently) want to ship out the other permanent A that one shouldn't be an issue. Guys like Malhotra that come in, who have been there and shown they have what it takes at high levels elsewhere, should be given the opportunity to show they can lead the way here.
Don't be afraid of the evil B word, a compliance buyout might be the best thing to do with Ruutu if we can't find a taker via trade this year. That's 4.5 mil per in cap space that can be spent MUCH more effectively elsewhere.
Also on that note, if Muller doesn't finish this season well (IE: pushing for the playoffs at least even if we miss) see ya, and go outside the box on the next hire. Jukka Jalonen is an absolutely brilliant coach, would LOVE to see the Canes be the kind of forward thinking team to bring him over here.
