IIRC, when Ribeiro found out he was not getting extended/let go by WAS, wasn't the first call that his agent made was to GMDM, since Ribeiro liked playing for Tippett?
So, maybe we did jump the gun when, for the first time in a long time, a high-value FA said that they wanted to come here. Maybe we thought we had some pieces in place already that would help with the transition of adding Ribeiro. Maybe there was also some thought that Ribeiro would help those players as well.
I feel like there was some blind faith involved in building this team this year, which there should be when looking at bringing in free agents. But previous years described finding the "fits" before the blind faith approach. I actually thought that we increased the talent level over what we had in previous iterations of the team. And, even though we can argue that DM had so many defensemen on the roster, I don't think it was a bad plan. We just could not have seen the fallout of our defense. Klesla never looked right after the preseason concussion. Morris had some family issues to take care of. Stone, Schlemko, etc. haven't been routinely horrible, but have not been good enough. Yandle is too inconsistent on a play-by-play and minute-by-minute basis. OEL and Z are even making bad mistakes. But the reason why it was a decent plan is b/c we would have needs for other teams at all levels.
Let's say that we were 4th in the West right now, and looking to add a top 6 forward. Well, the defense would obviously have lived up to the hype, meaning that players like Stone, Rundblad, Morris, and Klesla may be available as part of a package, and b/c each of those players would be more "interchangable" in the lineup (similar to how Stone filled in for Aucoin in the playoffs in 2012), we could make a reasonable case to part with one of those D. Then we'd have young talent or older, veteran players to throw together with a B level prospect (the Mieles, Lessios, and Szwarzs of the world) to get ourselves the top 6 forward.
The wins at the beginning of the season were the worst types of wins, b/c we were winning with sheer luck, which is different from winning ugly. Our additions made us into a team that would just play and pull things out of a hat, without regard to whether or not we were truly improving as a functioning team. All of a sudden, we start to get snake-bit by injuries and bad play, and players try to do things on their own to break out of the rut. All it takes is one player to get out of line, order, sequence, whatever - and it becomes harder to reel them back in. Especially when the players like Ribeiro, Smith, and Yandle have little to no repercussions for the poor quality of play. They can take those chances of playing out of system b/c they know there is little punishment coming their way. Heck, it took until game 50 to actually demote Ribeiro to 4th line.
We got complacent, and complacency doesn't earn anyone a job. It takes away from the compete level, and leaves players questioning why there was no improvement during the year.
Let's do it.
