You know, I want to say I could see this coming from a million miles away but that feels hollow now. Such a waste.
What do we do? We can change coaches but then another year as they learn a new system? Can't trade the vets? No one wants the youth or what youth we can give up.
As much as I pissed people off back in December or January, and as much as I enjoyed the ride from February on, I still stand by what I said back then. This team is not built to be an elite team, I don't care what we did the last two months of the regular season.
You can't build a team with a core of aging vets and young players projected to top out as second liners. You can't build an elite team around 30+ year old players you acquired through free agency and trading. You need to build through the draft and supplement that talent you get with the free agents and the trades.
Not to mention, we still don't have reliable goaltending.
Also, I'm sick of the idea that two way play and character is more important than high end talent. Draft for the best player, not the safest.
So yeah, I don't think this team is built to win a championship. Not when Chicago, Anaheim, LA and Tampa are out there. Fletcher did a good job at making them competitive quick, but I think there's an underlying flaw in the structure of the team. Could we get lucky and make it deep? Perhaps. But that's what it's going to take, a lot of luck, because this team isn't skilled enough to win on skill alone, and Yeo is not a good enough coach to coach them to victory.