tjs*
Registered User
- Mar 18, 2016
- 2,103
- 0
The main point is to understand the business side of the game. We all love Bishop and personally I've been claiming for a while he's our most valuable player on the team, yes even more than Hedman IMO. I'm talking as one of his biggest supporter. But we need to change our approach, because it's flawed. Our possession game is suspect. The goal scoring, particularly when Kuch or Johnson are slumping tends to be clearly below average. Bish can only stand on his head as long as a human body can, and it seems it's not humanly possible to stay healthy when you need to steal 2 playoffs games per series. We're slowly becoming a younger version of the New York Rangers. The mindset of our skaters relies too much on a skillset based on defense. We have 3 forwards capable to take over a series production wise, Killorn and Palat are well-balanced but the rest of the team is just too one-dimension and plain terrible at scoring goals and/or even generate puck possession or smart plays. We just have too many Filpullas, Callahans, Browns and all here, they're very responsible players but they almost never score in the playoffs.
Now how can we improve this team ? Bish's likely to command a significant raise, something around $7M per season is very possible. Vasy's not nearly as great but he's already a decent goaltender and good enough to be reliable on a Cup contending line-up. Time will also play in Vasy's favor, he'll get better with more playing time.
The most difficult has already been done though, our top 6 is frigging legit and playoffs tested, one of the most productive in the playoffs the past 2 years, but depth at forward is absolutely key in the playoffs because your top 6 can't own such high competition for 2 months in a row. Sometimes they need support, help, a breath of fresh air... Just something !
Schneider was traded for a top 10 draft pick and he wasn't as nearly proven as Bish is now. Ain't gonna say he could bring us back a lot more but not only we'd be capable to clear some colossal cap-space, we would resolve the expansion draft concern at the same time AND also we could improve the skating squad with a young player on cheap contract having a minimum of scoring touch and offensive IQ.
Yeah, I was against this thought process before but with the recent announcement about the cap likely staying close to flat this seems to be the direction the wind is blowing. If the cap continued to rise even at a low rate of ~$3M per year we would be in pretty good shape with Stamkos walking, Carle being bought out, Filppula being moved or bought out, etc. Without even that small increase however we are now in serious danger of losing multiple pieces of our core.
So as much as I hate to say it the smart move might be to give up on our Cup chances for the next year or two and focus on building a team that can be competitive longer term. If that means moving higher priced veterans in order to ensure that we retain our quality youth then so be it. It'll hurt us for a year or two but then we'll have a team that can compete for the next decade; the alternative is to go "Cup or bust" with the team we have now and watch as we lose a good chunk of our talent.