Hindsight is 20/20 Thread

[Boom Boom Apathy]

I saw this done by some fans of a football team, and thought it would be fun here. If you could go back 10 years (so 2004 draft until today) and in hindsight, change any 5 moves this team made, what would those be and what would the line-up look like today?

Those moves can't be unrealistic, such as "I'd trade for Crosby" or "I'd sign Suter as a UFA", so are limited to things like: Draft picks made, letting someone go as a UFA when it was likely they would have stayed (Seidenburg for instance), trades made that you now wouldn't make, guys you wouldn't re-sign when they were UFAs (but not RFAs).

Some examples could be: Not trading Ladd for Ruutu. Drafting Karlsson over Boychuk, Drafting Saad over Rask, etc....

I realize that moves made could have a domino effect (e.g...you might not end up with the #5 pick 2 years ago had you made those moves), but for this, assume all the draft positions were the same as they actually were.

Once you are done, post your line-up and let's see who has the best line-up. Again, limited to only 5 moves.

Click to read more...

 

[What the Faulk]

-Not traded Justin Williams (IMO probably the biggest hindsight move)

-Kept Seidenberg

-Not traded Ladd

-Karlsson instead of Boychuk (next pick)

-Not traded Alt

Ladd // Staal // Semin
Tlusty // Staal // Williams
Skinner // Nash // Lindholm
Gerbe // Rask // Mcclement
Dwyer

Seidenberg // Karlsson
Sekera // Faulk
Hainsey // Murphy
Gleason

Ward
Khudobin


Finding a 5th off the top of my head was hard thus Alt is on there. The sad part is none of these required much hindsight and the moves they did make instead (ex Ruutu) have zero impact now.

Such is life in Carolina.

 

[Joe McGrath]

^ That lineup has to be way over the cap, no?

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

I should have mentioned to forget about the Salary cap for this exercise, as that's impossible to predict how contracts would have been handed out. For example, they might give guys like Skinner and Faulk bridge deals for lower money if they were strapped for cap space, etc... Here's mine (which I am sure is over the cap):

1) Not traded Ladd
2) Selected Subban instead of Sutter
3) Selected Karlsson instead of Boychuk
4) Because of (2), I can't trade for Jordan Staal so selected Forsberg in 2012 draft (thought about Trouba, but with Faulk, Sekera, Suban and Karlsson..I went with a forward.
5) Not traded Williams. (thought about Saad instead of RASK, but the team is light on C without Jordan or Sutter.

Ladd-E. Staal-Semin
Skinner-Lindholm-Forsberg
Tlusty-Nash-Williams
Gerbe-Rask-Dwyer

Karlsson-Subban (yeah, I know one has to play off side, but they can)
Sekera-Faulk
Hainsey-Murphy
Dumoulin

Ward
Khudobin

EDIT: Actually, the cap for mine isn't as bad as I thought. $73.8M vs. a $69M cap. I'm pretty sure a savvy GM could have made it work by doing things like striking bridge deal vs. long term for Skinner + Faulk, signing some of these guys to a bit less $250K hear or there), signing a cheaper back-up, etc..

 

[Joe McGrath]

^ Mine was going to be almost identical, but I drafted McDonough instead of Sutter for the LHD reason and he was the next pick in the draft.

 

[What the Faulk]

^ That lineup has to be way over the cap, no?

Yeah, but not by as much as I thought though. "Only" $4.3 million if I use my 5th wish to get rid of Liles/Gleason/Harrison instead of keeping Alt.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

^ Mine was going to be almost identical, but I drafted McDonough instead of Sutter for the LHD reason and he was the next pick in the draft.

Yeah..I thought about that..and that would meet the CAP as well (Subban is $9M, McDonagh is $4.7)..but Subban is just so good that I couldn't pass that up.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

I forgot one. I'd take Anze Kopitar instead of Jack Johnson, which means one other would have to come off my list....probably justin Williams honestly so my revised five/line-up would be:

1) Not traded Ladd
2) Selected Subban instead of Sutter
3) Selected Karlsson instead of Boychuk
4) Because of (2), I can't trade for Jordan Staal so selected Forsberg in 2012 draft (thought about Trouba, but with Faulk, Sekera, Suban and Karlsson..I went with a forward.
5) Taken Kopitar instead of JJ.

Ladd-E. Staal-Forsberg
Tlusty-Kopitar-Semin
Skinner-Nash-Lindholm
Gerbe-Rask-Dwyer

Karlsson-Subban (yeah, I know one has to play off side, but they can)
Sekera-Faulk
Hainsey-Murphy
Dumoulin

Ward
Khudobin

 

[Joe McGrath]

Ok so with a little creative drafting since this is the hindsight thread here's my current product:

1. Draft McD instead of Sutter
2. Draft Karlsson instead of Boychuk
3. Draft Kopitar instead of Jack Johnson
4. Keep Ladd
5. Draft Jamie Benn instead of Drayson Bowman

Ladd-Staal-Benn
Skinner-Kopitar-Semin
Tlusty-Foresberg-Lindholm
Gerbe-Nash-Dwyer
Rask

McD-Karlsson
Sekera-Faulk
Hainsey-Murphy

Ward
Khudobin

I considered putting in, not signing Jay Harrison as #5 but I figured getting Benn would be more useful.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

Ok so with a little creative drafting since this is the hindsight thread here's my current product:

1. Draft McD instead of Sutter
2. Draft Karlsson instead of Boychuk
3. Draft Kopitar instead of Jack Johnson
4. Keep Ladd
5. Draft Jamie Benn instead of Drayson Bowman

Ladd-Staal-Benn
Skinner-Kopitar-Semin
Tlusty-Foresberg-Lindholm
Gerbe-Nash-Dwyer
Rask

McD-Karlsson
Sekera-Faulk
Hainsey-Murphy

Ward
Khudobin

I considered putting in, not signing Jay Harrison as #5 but I figured getting Benn would be more useful.

Wow..good one on Benn. I counted Drafting Forsberg as one of my 5 though where-as you have him in your line-up.

 

[Anton Babchuk]

1. not signed c4m w4rd to a seven-year mega deal after literally one good regular season. it was typically unnecessary and inexplicably long jim rutherford ********. this is the same psycho who wanted to sign brandon sutter to a seven-year deal.
2. traded ruutu and gleson at the deadline in 2012 instead of signing them to godawful contracts and then trading them two years later for a bad contract (liles) while retaining salary for ruutu. instead of possibly significant assets returned and $8.75M free to spend we wind up with less than half that money and a conditional 3rd round pick in 2017. what the ****.
3. re-signed seidenberg
4. not made any of the ********, low effort, obviously terrible signings that we make every year for horrible hockey players who can't skate and have bricks for hands and spend all game in the defensive zone in the name of "grit"--malone, komisarek, gleason, harrison, mcclement (he is terrible, i'm sorry), etc. all these guys are absolute horrid wastes of space. every year there are low risk, potentially high reward players available for cheap and we elect to sign the low risk, zero reward players simply because we seem to be under impression that adding "big" players who are "gritty" will help the team even if they can't play hockey. the problem with this team's softness comes from many of its significant players who are eating up big minutes and isn't solved in any way by adding ****** hockey players. brad malone doesn't make jeff skinner win board battles or make eric staal care.

if anything the addition of these players only makes things worse because there's a complete disconnect in style of play. this roster is just a random mix of hockey players with no thought put into a real team identity. putting two of your most skilled players constantly on the ice with two horrible defensemen who can't get them the puck like last night with skinner/semin/gleason/harrison? obviously horrible idea that doesn't benefit either side. unfortunately people who don't understand the concept of things like "transition" and "passing" or can't recognize that gleson and harrison rarely actually accomplish anything with their "physicality" other than aimlessly shoving players along the boards while they set up a tent in the hurricanes' defensive zone think that gleson and harry are just going to go out there and be big and gritty and knock players off the puck and then throw it up blindly up the boards to skinner and semin who will skate 200 feet and score a goal. this is a rant that makes no sense and i'm sorry you read it. srynotsry
5. not re-signed joe corvo any of the ten times we did. **** that guy

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

I think for this you have to assume some level of dominoes as well. For instance, if they draft Karlsson and Subban/McDonagh, there's no way their signing Gleason, Bellemore, etc.. this year.

 

[What the Faulk]

I forgot one. I'd take Anze Kopitar instead of Jack Johnson, which means one other would have to come off my list....probably justin Williams honestly so my revised five/line-up would be:

That's a good one. I tried to factor in some sort of butterfly effect for mine. Taking Kopitar prevents Gleason/Liles from being on the team and Belanger only returned an aging Vasicek. Tverdovsky had, what, two years left on his contract at that point? Assuming we don't care about the previous 10 years, this is definitely one of the better changes out there. If the cap doesn't matter, let's go with that over Alt for my number 5.

Ladd // Eric // Semin
Tlusty // Jordan // Williams
Skinner // Kopitar // Lindholm
Gerbe // Nash // Rask

Seidenberg // Karlsson
Sekera // Faulk
Hainsey // Murphy

Ward
Khudobin

Only over by $9.2 million now. Hurray!

I considered putting in, not signing Jay Harrison as #5 but I figured getting Benn would be more useful.

Only by a hair.

 

[Joe McGrath]

Wow..good one on Benn. I counted Drafting Forsberg as one of my 5 though where-as you have him in your line-up.

I didn't realize. I can just put Rask and Nash and 3/4 c and be done with it then.

 

[Anton Babchuk]

i admit to not actually reading most of the thread, so perhaps this was already discussed, but what about the ripple effect that not repeatedly making horrible decisions has on our draft picks? we don't wind up with those high draft picks if we don't drive the franchise into the ground. i can't see how all these significantly better imaginary lineups with players like seidenberg, ladd, williams, karlsson, etc would have resulted us in getting skinner or lindholm, for instance.

edit: i see this was discussed in the first post, which i didn't bother to read. lol i'm sorry
edit 2: thanks for the gold, kind stranger!
edit 3:

 

[What the Faulk]

All of the players were stored in stasis cells in the PNC basement until 2014. Like Demolition Man, but for hockey.

 

[The Stranger]

1) Draft Kopitar over Johnson (2004)
2) Draft Simmonds over Sutter (2007)...this cancels J.Staal trade and allows Canes to draft F.Forsberg (2012)
3) Draft Benn over Bowman (2007)
4) Draft Karlsson over Boychuck (2008)
5) Draft Hamonic over Dalpe (2008)

Canes Hindsight
FORWARDS
Jamie Benn ($5.250m) / Eric Staal ($8.250m) / Filip Forsberg ($0.894m)
Jeff Skinner ($5.725m) / Anze Kopitar ($6.800m) / Wayne Simmonds ($3.975m)
Jiri Tlusty ($2.950m) / Riley Nash ($0.575m) / Elias Lindholm ($0.925m)
Zach Boychuk ($0.600m) / Jay McClement ($1.000m) / Patrick Dwyer ($0.900m)
DEFENSEMEN
Andrej Sekera ($2.750m) / Erik Karlsson ($6.500m)
Travis Hamonic ($3.857m) / Justin Faulk ($4.833m)
Ron Hainsey ($2.833m) / Brett Bellemore ($0.600m)
GOALTENDERS
Cam Ward ($6.300m)
Anton Khudobin ($2.250m)
RETAINED SALARIES (1.38% of upper limit)
Tuomo Ruutu ($0.950m—20.00%)
BONUS OVERAGE
NaN
------
CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS (follow @capgeek on Twitter)
(estimations for 2014-15 crunched using simulation date of 2014-11-14)
SALARY CAP: $68,940,000; BONUSES: $1,416,667
CAP SPACE (20-man roster): $1,086,889

 

[nobuddy]

in hindsight?

i would have given gary bettman all the money he wanted for us to win the 2005 lottery so we could have sidney crosby

then i would have tanked and put him on the fourth line with fast and bayda so we could continue having 1st overall picks. i would then send these 1st overall picks back to juniors/NCAA/AHL in an effort to tank and continue receiving 1st overall picks

2006: kessel 1st overall
2007: kane 1st overall
2008: stamkos 1st overall
2009: hedman 1st overall

skinner-crosby-kessel
estaalo-stamkos-kane
tlusty-jstaalo-lindholm
gerbe-nash-rask

sekera-hedman
hainsey-faulk
gleson-murphy

 

[tarheelhockey]

I would have sucked for one more season after 2003.

 

[Anton Babchuk]

i shouldn't have changed my hf username to a slight modification of a screenname of a girl i was obsessed with, which she found via google autofill while googling herself

 

[nobuddy]

i shouldn't have changed my hf username to a slight modification of a screenname of a girl i was obsessed with, which she found via google autofill while googling herself

oh no.

 

[What the Faulk]

Eric Staal might play like a girl sometimes but I'm mostly sure he isn't one.

 

[Anton Babchuk]

Eric Staal might play like a girl sometimes but I'm mostly sure he isn't one.

not this username, the one about maybe knowing anton again

 

[RodTheBawd]

At first I liked this thread. Then I realized some of these lineups could have been possible. Now, I don't like this thread.

 

[Boom Boom Apathy]

1) Draft Kopitar over Johnson (2004)
2) Draft Simmonds over Sutter (2007)...this cancels J.Staal trade and allows Canes to draft F.Forsberg (2012)
3) Draft Benn over Bowman (2007)
4) Draft Karlsson over Boychuck (2008)
5) Draft Hamonic over Dalpe (2008)

see, I consider that as 2 decisions, not 1 (drafting Simmons and drafting Forsberg). So one of the other ones would need to come off the list.