OK, so what do we do?
Put Hopkins on the trade table and when we don't get an offer that we like we trade him for 1/3 of his value just so that we can say we did something?
I think it's pretty easy to see that players will be held accountable if they're constant failures as we've seen highly paid played like Nikitin and Fayne waived this year.
Not much else our coaches or managers can do to get through to the players and asking for a top four d-man with a bunch of years left on his contract is a pretty tall order at this time of the year.
I don't have an answer, I just know that in 10 years, we haven't figured out what it takes to build an average team. That's scouting, that's drafting and development, that's balancing a 23 man roster, that's acknowledging what the trend is and trying to build that way, that's knowing your weaknesses, that's bringing in competent personal, on and off ice, that's trading from a position of strength so you don't have to trade from a position of weakness, that's having the eye to know which players should get the long term deals and which should be moved...
I don't have answers, but they haven't figured out what it takes yet, obviously. They're trending better this year, but we all know there is no promises. We could go 20-0 to end the year, miss the playoffs by a point and be garbage again next year. We could trade for Hamonic and sign Byfuglien and still be terrible. McDavid could get 120 points next year, while Draisatl and Hopkins fall of the face of the earth and combine for 50 points. We could bring in Shea Weber, he could have a Norris winning season while Klefbom forgets how to play hockey and Nurse asks for a trade.
I don't know what's wrong here, but even if we have the talent, there still isn't the hunger and the will needed to even be average. How people can sit here and still be optimistic while we watch our stars take turns taking two week holidays from effort is beyond me.