There is no wishful thinking when it comes to Organic growth when you know you have been growing organically. Do you know what I mean? When your organizational depth is deep thats what happens. You don't have to go whale hunting. You promote from within.
Every team is fairly dependent on there goaltending. I don't even know why that is a concern here.
The same Enstrom who missed half the season? We did fine without him.
Kulikov and Myers are nightmare matchups on the 3rd pairing for teams
Armia played a bottom 6 role and will be replaced. Missed yes but he isn't a driver on this team so why worry
We finished 2nd in the league in GF and 5th in the league for GA. Still going to be a powerhouse and I have a good feeling we will be even better next year
Good post...
Basically, the Jets traded Armia for cap space instead of for futures. Right now, cap space is more valuable.
Meanwhile, here's what happened to the roster since the 110+ point team from last season...
Roslovic replaces Armia as bottom 6 RW. Probably an improvement for the Jets, when all is said and done.
Petan and Dano replace Hendricks and Matthias as our forward depth.
Poolman comes back one season stronger, and along with Morrow provides better D depth. Niku is on deck, and probably ready to make a real contribution in the NHL line-up, if necessary.
Jets still have Appleton, Lemieux and Vesalainen chomping at the bit as depth forwards (running the Jets' forward depth to 5 deep, with Petan and Dano).
There is little question that other teams have improved, especially the Leafs. But the Jets were a 110+ pt team, and they don't look like they've really lost anything since heading into last season. As Murat points out in his article in the Athletic today, if the Jets are able to preserve around $2.5M in cap space gained through the Mason / Armia trade into the season after the RFA signings, that will equate to around $11M in cap space at the trade deadline, in case the Jets need to make a move to fill in roster gaps.
I was disappointed with how things panned out, but the Jets are in pretty good shape at this point.
Now they need to focus on locking up their RFAs and hope that Laine is training like a fiend to come back for a beastly season.