The off-season has been a failure so far. They shuffled some deck chairs. I was fine with shuffling chairs last off-season, I defended it, because to me developing kids was crucial, and I figured the team would finish around 10th again and at least be teasing a potential playoff birth up until the last month or so of the year - clearly on the outside looking in, but not miles away.
After what just happened, however, shuffling some deck chairs was and is not acceptable. Swapping bottom six depth and B level defensmen around for younger, likely B level defensemen was necessary, but was secondary to the larger issues. So far, there are three massive failings that dwarf this off-season:
1) No serious staff changes. Yes, they let some assistant coaches walk, and we knew Bednar would be back despite how disappointing that is, but it was public knowledge they were pursuing other names to add to the FO, and they failed. In any other organization there would have been a house cleaning after what just happened...they didn't do that, fine - but after it publicly got out they were clearly trying to add someone notable, and then failing to do so...that's pretty bad IMO.
2) Haven't traded Duchene, haven't shaken up the core. The key players on this team last year will be the key players on the team this year - none have been moved, there's been no message sent, etc. And now Duchene is just hacked off and wants out, so that's a ticking time bomb.
3) They haven't improved the defense in a key way whatsoever. They needed to add a really high end top four defender (going on about year 10 of that now...), but right now this is our starting top four:
Zadorov (maybe
) - EJ
Barberio - Barrie
That's a bottom 5-7 top pairing in the league, and a bottom 5 defense overall, pretty much crippling the club right from the start.
So far I think the off-season deserves a D rating. Sakic, as usual, hasn't gotten the big and really important things done. It can still be salvaged if Sakic actually pulls off a decent Duchene trade.
