I think Galchenyuk for Domi was a needed change of scenery trade for both team.
I may be in the minority, but I still would have liked De La Rose as a longterm, cheap bottom 6 forward. But at the end of the day, 4th liners are replaceable.
Yes they are but i firmly believe that the best way to achieve a strong team spirit is to have a bunch of guys drafted by you and who grew up in your organization. They spend 2 training camps playing with your vets before finishing their junior career. Then they go play in the AHL with your other kids and they spend more time with your vets in more training camps and when they are recalled because of injuries. By the time they graduate they already know the people in place and the system.
It's not realistic to expect a team to be made of 20 guys drafted by you but i think you should aim to have at least 10 guys you drafted or acquired at a young age (à la Suzuki) and who have been playing for your team for a couple of years (at least between 3 to 5 years either in the AHL or NHL). I will never understand the fixation this team has since the mid 90ies with icing the scrubs they get from other teams instead of their own young players.
It's okay when you aim to win a cup now like the Caps they got Eller, DSP, Kempny and Connolly cause they had to win now (but they also gave kids like Vrana, Burakovsky, Stephenson and Djoos a chance). When you look at the Caps cup winning team of last year (players who played 10 games in playoffs) 12 players out of 20 players were drafted by the caps. That's 60% of the team. That's how imo you build team spirit.
Currently we have a great total of 7 players drafted by us out of 26 players (minimum of 10 games) so only 27% of the team. It's been this way for a long while now outside of a few years when Subban, Patch, Gallagher, AG, Emelin, etc came in. When we went to the semis in 2014 we had 11 players out of 22 players drafted by us so 50% of the team (or signed ufa after their junior career - minimum 5 games). Personally i have a very hard time as a fan to identify myself to a team made of players who came from other teams. I hated Weber before we got him it will take me more time before i can digest this trade. At least around 2 or 3 more years before he really is a Canadiens for me.
Yeah DLR is easily replaceable. But so is Deslaurier, Don Juan D'Agostino (as soon as earth will call him back which will happen one day), Chaput, .... At least DLR was our kid. We watched him grow up. He was not perfect by he was a Canadiens. We could have at least given him a chance until it was clearly not working and we had clearly a better option.
Icing guys like Don Jan D'Agostino is imo one of the thing this team has been doing wrong for too many years. Yeah you can always hit an home run like Byron but it happens 1 time our of 1000. It's more often than not a complete waste of time. But in Montreal we like a good story. The underdog coming from another team. The guy playing with "l'énergie du désespoir" cause he knows the Montreal Canadiens is his last chance to make millions. The guy who will give everything for 40 games while nobody expect him to give anything. We like those stories a lot. The media loves them. The fans cherish them. And the management knows those stories are worth millions in tickets sold. Sadly because we over hype our prospects they can never be the underdog no matter how unskilled they might be.
Personally i gave up trying to convince people the musical chair with scrubs strategy is a bad one. I try to let them enjoy their Don Juan D'Agostino while it last and then make sure to tell them "i told you so" when earth call them back. I'll be wrong 1 time out of 1000. Great job Byron but i don't have enough place in this reply to list every time the strategy failed before.
