So, speculation on what Armia wanted or thought about his role on the team. Connor was in the conversation for rookie of the year, and he's not known for his defence. Armia proved to be pretty responsible defensively but nowhere near Connor in offensive capability.
The team only had Stastny for around 20 games in the regular season. They were a top 5 team without him. Little has shown he can be better than last year so I'm not banking on him repeating last year. I think Roslovic and Armia net out with more potential offensive upside.
No, it's plain common sense what any or every player would want. When you have the skill and you are stuck in the lower lines, I'm sure that's not where you see yourself for the rest of your career. Let alone with significantly lower earnings. Well hello, who did Connor play again? You're basically lining up two guys and comparing them offensively like they had similar circumstances and opportunities to present their cases. Connor had I would say top 10 center and top 5 winger (league-wise) aside him all year long. Who did Armia have again and how many looks did he get in the top six all in all?
That's not to say Connor isn't a good player and extremely capable looking long term. But one cannot escape the fact that he got a lot of things handed over on the silver plate and without the Scheifele and Wheelers there's a larger chance he would have spend vast proportions of the season in the AHL as opposed to playing entire season in the NHL.
The Jets have shown that they have more than 3 scoring threats so the "offensive wealth" is already spread around. You can't shut the Jets down by just stopping one line, so I don't buy your Maurice theory.
Erm, I suppose you didn't follow the playoffs that thoroughly then. P.Mo started burning the first line in the first period basically at every single game, until they were quite visibly just exhaust and worn out going into the third. If you failed to notice then I'm not sure how specifically you've been paying attention but even during the regular season when the ESL was in absolute tear, I think the top line was seeing a bit more ice time despite of not being as effective. So no, the Jets have had a clear 1st line, 2nd, 3rd and 4th line as opposed to utilizing 1a & 1b or even 1a & 1b & 1c kind of a setup which also could have been valid options due to depth. Maurice is old school this way and not very adept to changing or trying new things.
Still saying that Armia would've returned a first where this has not shown to be the case with similar players in the past. No point attempting to re-sign him midseason if he's just going to be traded. This hasn't cost the Jets another first rounder for one playoff run, it allows them to sign more valuable players to make future playoff runs.
Kulikov and Perreault would've affected the price the Jets would have to pay to dump the Mason contract negatively, ie. It would've cost more than a 4th and a 7th.
Was Kulikov a necessity signing in the begin with? I talked about that earlier. There's Niku and there's Poolman and there's basically 6 slots available. I'm not sure if they even had to sign him. Perreault still has a value (that by the way isn't negative). He can slot almost everywhere and 4,1m AAV for a player like that isn't much. A deal around him and Mason would not have worked with Montreal but then again, it's not what I claimed in the begin with (just compared his value to Armia). There have been plenty of good players who have returned mid to late first rounders. For an average mid- to late first rounder to even become NHL regular is like throwing a stone to a long distance target while keeping your fingers crossed. Sometimes you hit and more often than not you don't. He would have returned a first rounder in different circumstances. If you don't want to believe that then by all means don't.
Maurice coached the team to 114 points, 52 wins, 2nd overall in the season, and the WCF. I'm not concerned about coaching going into next season.
Little was signed well before Stastny was even discussed as an option. They would've spent that money elsewhere. Your proposal that Little's contract has now prevented us from signing Stastny is like saying drafting Laine has now prevented us from drafting Hughes. It's not like Little's money would've just gone unspent.
Maurice was practically steering a team full stars with no glaring weaknesses and did well especially in the regular season what comes to wins and points in general. When you can slot a player like Armia into 3rd or 4th line that already tells quite a lot. Pretty much any coach in the league could have done what he did so I'm not all that impressed. In fact most might have done even better. For a coach that could not get his second line going for ~half a season, there's simply no way of telling if more wins were washed away due to all the key pieces that weren't in sync or not clicking. The Jets had 2nd most goals out of all the teams in the league and I believe they were top 5 in this category already after 16-17 so the offensive group was one of the best in the league. If you look at the defence, there were the likes of Trouba, Byfuglien, Morrisery, Myers, Kulikov and Enström. How many organizations can top that? I'd say not many. Then lastly, Hellebuyck was finally able to figure out the puzzle and provided All-Star level of goalkeeper. So what we are looking at is elite offence, elite defence and elite goalkeeping. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to lead a team like that to playoffs or even win the conference (although P.Mo didn't quite get there). He had a good season as a coach, but nothing spectacular and it still doesn't take away the fact that he's the record holder of the most losses in the history of the NHL. You might be confident of his abilities, but I'm not.
Oh I'm well aware when Little was signed. I suppose they didn't want to risk him going into the UFA market and gambled to make an early signing. He was still under his old contract until the end of 17-18. Today it definitely looks like the gamble isn't paying off. In fact if they had waited until the end of the 17-18 they probably could have picked between Stastny or Little and I don't think even loyalty would have saved Little after last season in that case. I don't really blame Chev for the signing, but it definitely looks like the gamble isn't paying off at the moment. Little at his current form is a 3rd line center and his salary is far greater compared to what he brings on the table. Nonetheless, the statement of "they would have spent the money elsewhere" is rather strange say the least. I'll toss such non-sense in the same category of a ~hundred game sample size "being just a bad streak" or "Little outscoring Stastny in the coming seasons" etc. It's not like a cap team is just wasting or throwing dollars away out of sheer luxury.
