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FireBednarsSuccessor
Lol he was patient on Duchene and that is the reason we can be patient this year. We aren't winning the cup, why spend assets to make a run and possibly tie up cap space if we get players with term, Sakic has a plan and it's worked brilliantly. No teams that finish with 48 points total, make the playoffs the following year and continue to compete for a playoff spot even while in midst of a rebuild. We hold a guaranteed top 5 pick, our own first, an elite prospect in Makar who will be ready next year and a whole lot of cap room to sign some people up this summer. He's been great.
He was patient on the Duchene trade & that's the reason we have Girard, Kamenev, Bowers & a pick to dream about instead of Chabot, Zibanejad & the money to have signed Radulov when he first came back. So yeah...
Luckily that pick is looking like it will be high enough to bail Sakic out on that one, but nobody (including Sakic himself) expected that to be the case when the trade was made so I struggle to give him too much credit there. Ultimately, we're still in a good position if Joe is ready to step up this offseason & actually put a good team together.
...but that would be off-brand for him. Which is why some of us are skeptical that we'll see the kind of additions we need to start making actual progress after the past decade of futility...and instead expect more non-solutions like Brassard or Boedker; who fit Sakic's MO of low cost, low risk, & no reward.
*another explosion of his brainTimmins will be an NHL defensemen. No doubt about that barring an explosion of his brain
...which isn't exactly unlikely if his skating doesn't improve...