Don't expect a big jump for next year. I could think our jump will happen after 2020 off-season. then most of the dead weight is gone. There's no players yet who could make that impact at next summer. It happens only if we get Panarin+Karlsson+Bobrovsky or 2 of them from the UFA.
Currently we are icing a team with real caphit values on the level of ~cap floor. Cap floor valued team will end on the bottom, that's how it goes.
We have to start getting value for our used millions (+80 million healthy players), and/or, more underpaid players like Elite guys on ELC, then the success will come back and we'll see a jump on the standings.
But who said anything about a "big jump?" Its January 9th and we're 2 points away from being the 11th worst team in the league. 2 points. 11th overall. Spending half the season thus far with our top 3-4 defenseman out of the lineup. A handful of bounces our way and we're sitting in a wild card spot.
This team. A potential playoff team?
This is exactly the hand-waving I'm talking about. Its so easy to point to a rebuilding roster and say it will be shit next year. But will it? Getting into the middle third of this league is only ever a good or bad week of hockey away for most teams, but statistically, the middle third of the 1st round is a world away from the top 3 in any given draft year. Yet thats what we're looking at if we anticipate that little changes in the coming year. That seems awfully presumptuous considering a literal third of our potential roster next year is comprised of guys (Bertuzzi, AA, Zadina, Mantha, Cholowski, Veleno, Hronek, Rasmussen, 2019 pick) who are still developing. We have no star player poised to fall off - instead we have a bunch of kids ready to step up. If just a couple of the aforementioned guys take a big step developmentally, that could turn us into a different team and all bets are off. But if all of them stagnate, we don't look that much different either. Like I said in as many words, its easy to play the pessimist here.
Also, Re:"real value" vis-a-vis cap hit. Thats pretty pointless to me here. Every team in the NHL has a cap number that doesn't reflect "real cap hit values" because every team has overpaid veterans and cost-controlled youngsters. We have scrubs making $4-5M but our #3 defenseman is also making $812k and 1/2 of our top 6 makes $3M or less.
I think we'll probably be even worse next year. Zadina will be an NHL rookie at best, all the vets get worse, and Hronek/Cholo will probably still be trying to learn the ropes as the only two decent defensemen on this team. The only dark horse is if we get a top 3 pick this year and the kid comes in and tears it up w/ Larkin (e.g. Kakko) - then we might be picking closer to 10-15 than 1-5.
Same as above. Lots of easy assumptions. Yet we have no way of knowing how many of our youngsters will take the next step, no way of knowing if that key UFA will accept our offer, no way of knowing if a trade possibility (thinking Trouba here) is more realistic than previously thought. There are for more avenues for us to look to or utilize to turn us into a
non-bottom 10 team than there are to say
unequivocally that we'll be worse next year. That's simply the way things are with the new draft lottery.
Instead, what we
do know is that we're weak now and we have the ability, namely through the trade route, to ensure that we're optimally poised to get locked into a top 5 pick. Finish in the bottom 2, get a top 5 pick. Its fact. No speculation required. No far-reaching scenarios needed. Gut this team of its impending UFAs (and possibly others) and every rational argument says we're headed for the bottom. The bright side here is that we don't have to be an affront to the sport to do so. Finish a handful of points short of the 25th worst team in the NHL and you can be dead last.
TL;DR - We f***ed around being bad at being good from about 2011-2016. Lets not f*** around by being bad at being bad while we have the chance.