Re-parsing your post a bit here, it seems there's two things you're upset about.
I'm not upset about anything. I'm having a grand old time. This part of the offseason is one of my favorite times of year. My whole point was that YOU'RE upset about some stuff, and a lot of it was premature. So no, I wasn't upset about anything last night because we still needed a center and I was pretty sure we'd get at least one good one. Didn't take long.
We can't go back in time and sign a player that another team signed, or trade for a player that another team traded for.
That kind of thinking is just plain silly. There's 32 teams in the league. You can't look at every deal, decide that we had similar assets to give, and just assume that it could have been ours if our GM wasn't a nitwit. GMs have relationships with each other, and no one really knows what the hell "future considerations" means. Could be handjobs. Who knows? If Vegas literally gave Patch away, trust that there was no shortage of takers and they could only pick one. We trounced Vegas for a Cup, and their POHO has every reason to hate us. You really think we could have gotten the inside track on that one?
We can't get value for the former 1st round pick that they let walk anymore.
Pffft. You gotta let that one go. There was zero chance anyone was trading for Samsonov after the deadline. And the Montreal rumor in February? Montreal wasn't competitive, so they weren't desperate. If there even was an offer, it was likely a bullshit pick, prospect, or whatever. No big loss. We needed a backup for the stretch.
The "Losing Samsonov was poor asset management" argument is nonsense unless you mean it like, "Washington really did a great job managing that poor asset." That I would agree with.
Secondly, and perhaps even more pertinently, when am I supposed to express my opinions?
When the thing you're bitching about is actually real. You were bitching about multiple things that hadn't happened yet, one being that we didn't get a center. Then we got a really good one that a lot of teams wanted, less than 30 hours into free agency. You went from "THIS worthless fothermucker right here is a terrible GM!" to "f*** Yeah!!!" in no time flat. Precognitive bitching gums up the works when it turns out to be bullshit. Literally much ado about nothing.
And Thirdly, I'm making an educated guess.
Are you though? An educated guess about our center situation last night would have taken what we know into account...
1) We desperately needed a center.
2) Our GM always addresses the holes in our lineup. Might not like how, but he always does it.
3) He addressed other glaring needs, further underscoring his intent to shore everything up.
4) We ended the day overstocked at wing, light at center, and over the cap. So there was definitely more work to do.
You may have made some educated guesses about other things. I can't think of any right now. But other things you were saying were just plain jumping to conclusions. And you were throwing elbows in the process, criticizing other people for having literally just a little bit of patience. Educated patience.
Maybe there are moves still coming.
No. There are definitely more moves coming. We're 6.5m over the cap. So again, since you definitely know that more moves are definitely coming, why not wait until the team is at least cap compliant? That'll be the first moment you can even suggest that we have a team that might be set in stone. Until then, anything can happen.
It's not like GMBM doesn't have a history of making big moves. And Kuemper, Brown, and Strome are in no way emblematic of "tinkering around the edges a bit." That's 3 damn good players coming in with nothing but trash going out. A big net positive. Acting like it's nothing because you didn't get the marquee guy you wanted would be an odd position to take.
