Agreed with this wholeheartedly.
From a strategic standpoint, whoever is in the GM role here really has to make a key decision, and rather quickly, if this team wants to have a hope of being something beyond middling. Either route has its merits - I tend to agree with you that there is so much junk on the current roster that the sacrifices to get it to a point of efficiency where it can contend with the Tampa Bay, Boston and St. Louis level teams of the league could have disastrous future consequences. And the compounding costs of moving numerous bad contracts would bleed so much value that the GM making these moves would need to be head and shoulders above the rest of the league.
On the other hand, I really cannot stress enough how much it seems, both from the transaction data, and from incorrect perceptions pushed in this market over the last 6 years, that futures are overvalued. The playoff frequency and luck strategy was Mike Gillis' downfall IMO - not trading futures and ending up with no prospects, as is the common misconception. Let's not forget that. Gillis might still be the GM today if he had traded Cody Hodgson and a 1st (used to pick Brendan Gaunce) in 2012 for Jeff Carter. Two assets that contribute absolutely zero value to this organization 8 years later (and with Kassian being moved with a pick for a negative value asset in Prust... it was actually negative value just 3 years later in 2015) may have been the difference between a Cup and a first round exit in 2012.
Now, we cannot even pretend for a second that the current roster is anywhere close to that tipping point, so the point really is moot for now. But for the purposes of this discussion, I'd be cautious about the "playoff frequency" strategy. Look at a team like Philly which is always in the running, but have never been able to surround Giroux (and Voracek) with the supporting cast needed, despite some home run prospects (Provorov/Konecny in the same draft...) over the years and no massive Eriksson/Okposo/Ladd/Lucic level cap blunders. The issue is that unless you can extract incredible value in free agency (nearly impossible), trades (takes a lot of skill and terrific pro scouting), or late round picks (throwing darts)... it is hard to improve the organization other than by just hoping for organic growth in your established core. That becomes nearly impossible once that core is starting to age. San Jose and Nashville are two more examples in the West. All of these teams made the Cup finals once and were beat by clearly better teams. None were repeat favorites to make it back the next year, or ever again. Is that really the goal?
It's certainly much easier at that point vs where the Canucks are now to take the next step like St. Louis/Washington eventually did, but I guess I think it is more likely that we can only ever get to that Philly level vs the Washington level, especially if the timing is around when Pettersson/Hughes are above age 25. Would anyone bet on Claude Giroux pulling off a Cup now at age 32, even with a decent supporting cast? Even if they added another superstar added by cashing in prospects via a deadline trade? That's already with further supporting role players added (Hayes/JVR) to bolster the depth. What if a player like Sanheim or Hart takes a massive leap forward in development? Could it happen for Philly? Sure. Is it likely?
And even that is kind of optimistic. Many teams led by superstars are only as good as the current Winnipeg Jets or maybe even the Calgary Flames. The latter just last season had 4 players hovering around a PPG, a Norris winner and lost in 5 games in the first round. Now they're hovering at mediocrity again. Would anyone bet on Mark Giordano winning a Cup as a Flame?
Instead, it seems like "going for it" on a consistent basis, while you have the core to do so - ie. Chicago, LA, Boston, Washington, Pittsburgh - is worth it, even at the potential cost of a very painful downward slide eventually. By having not picked in the first round 5 of 6 years between 2013 and 2018 (and trading that one 1st round pick in Kapanen), Pittsburgh is going to be f***ed once Crosby/Malkin/Letang retire, which might all happen at once. But maybe not, because by having those players they've had tremendous development success with players like Guentzel and Dumoulin that they may not have otherwise had. And they won two Cups during that stretch, so who gives a shit. Chicago still has Toews and Kane at age 32 to transition Dach and Debrincat. Would anyone be surprised if they pulled off another Cup in three years?
I think the crux of this discussion lies within your assessment of the transaction data, and the false perceptions regarding futures. What do you refer to here? Is it that the odds are stacked against producing players from the draft?
The premise doesn't so much rely on the player as it does the player's performance. Giroux is fine as the core piece so long as he performs like a core piece. He had his best year at age 30, lest we forget. He also followed up that year with an above PPG performance last year. That's good enough, much like Krejci was good enough, so long as Bergeron (Couturier) and Chara (not Provorov) are in tow.
To put another way: I'm not banking on any core that doesn't include a generational talent to continually compete. Nor am I banking on any one core group should the GM decide to go all in every year. What I see in the Canucks is a team with a relative disadvantage in terms of core pieces (quality and number), that will have to be made up by increasing the quality of their support pieces. That will be difficult to do quickly based upon their cap structure. So there’s really only the long frequency route available, unless they luck into another core player.
On Gillis' downfall: Probably, but it's because he didn't produce at the draft that we can surmise that a trade would have been better. The alternative is getting a core piece on an ELC, the holy grail, or a support piece that helps push them over the top. List is below on the possibilities.
(Kuznetsov*, Karlsson, Carlson, Josi, Spurgeon, O'Reilly, Stone, Gibson, Kucherov*, Gaudreau, Slavin, Theodore)
(Henrique, Nyquist, Demers, Johansson, Silfverberg, Dumoulin, Tatar, Barrie, R. Smith, Eakin, Savard, Ekholm, C. Smith, Foligno, Vatanen, Hoffman, A. Lee, Faulk, Toffoli, Jarnkrok, Zucker, Gudas, Rust, Donskoi, Hyman, Klingberg, Ferland, Andersen, Rakell, Jenner, Saad, W. Karlsson, Trochek, JG Pageau, A. Shaw, Palat, Pearson, A. Shaw, Skjei, Tierney, Severson, Lindell, Ghostisbehere, E. Gustafsson, Paquette, Athanasiou, Hellebuyck, Kerfoot, Hartman, Lekhonen, Bertuzzi, Pesce, Buchnevich, Guentzel, Bjorkstrand, Butcher, Weegar)
