They need to win a draft lottery to be good. Peterssen isn't the end all solution. Good teams have 3 or 4 Petey caliber players. This is a concept they can not grasp and continue to make rushed decisions.
Oh well. I wish they would have a better team so that it makes hockey more enjoyable in Vancouver!
They need a lot more than that.
Dim Jim needs to go. His drafting has been alright, let's say a B, his trades have also been about a B (even the Gudbranson trade doesn't look bad since Guds is a mean third pair RD, and thats more valuable than a below average third line C like McCann, and Florida traded the second), but the contracts he hands out, he must be aware of the salary cap but he doesn't have a clue how it works.
Eriksson: 6
Sutter: 4.375
Gudbranson: 4
Baertschi: 3.36
Roussel + Beagle: 6 combined for four years.
Statline for those players is 121-17-24-41.
F-
Bring in someone who can take an axe to that roster, because a non contender shouldn't have 24 tied up in five depth pieces, and someone who can tell the Aquillini family to stay in their lane.
With respect to their players, Petersson looks like he can be a perennial all star number one center (Ala Seguin), Horvat looks like a responsible two way plugger with good to great offense (Ala RoR), and Boeser as stated is a one dimensional winger who does that dimension at a top 0.1% level (Ala Kessel). Goldobin is also producing well, could be something there.
Virtanen is okay and I'd take him on the Leafs but I bet Willy still outproduces him this year.
They still need at least a Willy-level winger which while good Goldobin is not, and they still need much more from their depth players.
On D I'm not at all sold on Hughes and Juolevi becoming elite guys, maybe they max at a Spurgeon and an Edler respectively, and even if by some voodoo Quinton Hughes becomes Erik Karlsson, he's still carrying a D with Hutton, Stecher, Gudbranson, old man Edler and Tanev the glass man, they need a true number one horse; Pietrangelo would help them immensely, perhaps more than any other team, but I just don't see Pietrangelo waiving to go from a bad team to a bad team.
They also need a goalie. Demko looks good, but goalies are no guarantee.
I think they need a change in management and
at least:
- Two more top five picks, hit on both.
- Demko and another guy in the system to hit.
- To ship out some of that garbage (Eriksson for a start).
They're actually not in
that bad of a place, but they've got two or three more rebuild years.