I'm as much a advocate of traditional building as much as anybody, and in 2008, I would have loved nothing more than to have done a 4 year tank job and walked away with Stamkos, Tavares, Hall and Nugent-Hopkins or whatever while we were in the basement.
If the team tanks again this year, we could potentially walk away with another Morgan Rielly level prospect, preferably at center, which would be a real boon, but it would also mean that the majority of the pieces on this roster failed in some way, which kind of signals an even larger problem.
So while I wouldn't mind getting Mackinnon in a tank job, I am more concerned about what that means for the group as a whole as opposed to when we would have been tanking during a traditional tear down phase of a rebuild.
So long as TO has to settle for Bozak as the first line center we need to be concerned and for as long as players are playing for TO due to lack of options we are still obviously in the midst of a rebuild. I feel that TO has 1 true goalie, whether he's actually back-up worthy or #1 is to be determined, 2 proper top 4 d-men, Gardiner and O'Reilly may make it 4 and 1 truly guaranteed top 6 forward, Kadri, JVR and Lupul may also be, we'll see.
When you have more question marks on your team than guaranteed players then you have to be in the midst of a rebuild and any success a team has only Pejorative Slurs the rebuild.
Kessel made Lupul look like he was above average last year, Malkin did the same with Neal, Giroux with Hartnell and I would hope that McKinnon eventually might be able to do that with JVR, Kule or whoever TO might throw on a line with him.
Outside side of Gardiner and Ranger our AHL team could not even offer an upgrade to McClement or Fraser so not only is our NHL team a work in progress but our feeder system leaves a lot to be desired.
I think all of these considerations point to a team in the midst of a rebuild and premature success can only Pejorative Slur the process.
