One thing i do kind of have an issue with. What is "building"
Have we really been "building"?
We talk about being patient,thinking long term, building through the draft, developing, and etc etc etc.
If mgmt was really taking a long term approach... then wouldn't trading a core piece or two have been a given? The picks and prospects would help our "building" immensely.
If we're more concerned with shaping a team for the future, then wouldn't selling off aging UFA's for ANYTHING have been a better idea than hanging on to them only to miss the playoffs anyways?
I personally believe management thought what they have right now would improve to the point that they were able to sneak us into the playoffs once or twice while we continue to focus on solid drafting. It just didn't turn out that way.
I do think we will learn a lot about Chevy and his plan in the offseason. Our key players are locked up, and we will have cap to spend. Will Chevy make the moves needed to add talent and depth to this group? Or stand pat and hope that the same group will take us somewhere this time around?
I agree with this sentiment. Management seemed to think they'd be able to crack the playoffs with the roster they had, giving them time to build up the prospect pool slowly. But evidently they were wrong, and the biggest determining factor in how next year goes is how they acknowledge and react to that fact.
Considering what time of year it is, it's only natural that people are focusing on how Chevy has chosen to hold onto UFAs and lose them for nothing in the slim hope of making a playoff run. And with good cause! If those free agents had been turned into assets, even low-round picks, they would have helped to deepen our prospect pool and letting them go wouldn't hurt so much. But the Jets have a proven aversion to selling at the deadline when the team isn't good enough to buy, which means they haven't built up their prospect pipeline as deeply as they could. And that's important, because outside of early first-rounders like Scheifele and Trouba (and Morrissey) that are
expected to make it, prospects are a crapshoot and the best way to make sure a few of them are making a difference on the team in a couple years is to have as many of them as possible. As it stands, unless
all of our prospects make it there simply won't be enough talent coming from them to plug all the holes we've got now, let alone the ones that will open up as our current core ages and falls down the depth chart. And not all of them are going to make it. No matter how much we like guys like Petan, Lowry, Huchinson or Kosmachuk, some of them are going to be busts.
To bring things back around to the thread topic, I don't think that Chevy is going to be fired if he misses the playoffs again next year. But I do think that it will start to send red flags going up in TNSE headquarters, if they aren't already. Chevy has made his fair share of mistakes over the past few years, and because of that the Jets aren't as far ahead as they could have been.
If he'd let Pavelec walk a couple years ago and brought in another goalie to replace him, the team would probably have a brief playoff appearance under its belt and be en route to a second this year.
If he'd rebuilt the bottom six with solid role players instead of relying on slowing former top-sixers, waiver-wire pickups and offensively gifted defensemen to plug the holes, that could also have propelled the team into the playoffs even with Pavs being a below-average starter.
If he'd brought back Hainsey or found a solid LHD to work on the second pair instead of relying on Clitsome and Stuart, tighter play on the back end could have us a few wins ahead of where we are now.
If none of those things were possible for cap, contract or availability reasons...then this team as constituted was never going anywhere to start with and he could have sold off UFAs and even a few of our core pieces to bring in more prospects and picks to speed up the rebuild.
But he's done none of those things, and even after three years I can't tell what direction he thinks the team is moving in. He lets UFAs walk, even ones that won't cost more than a pittance to resign, which implies he thinks that the team has the prospect depth to replace them, but more waiver-wire claims have cracked the lineup than rookies during his tenure. He talks about patience and building through the draft, then signs coveted UFAs and trades picks for players. He tries to trade our core players in December when the team is cold, then tries to buy rental players in March when they're on an unsustainable hot streak. That leaves me wondering what the plan
is, because the actions he's taken so far are confusing at best. The end result of all of this is that after three seasons the Jets are still a (very likely at this point) non-playoff team with two forward lines, one and a half solid defence pairings, no starting goalie and a bunch of spare parts plugged into roles that they don't fit. And they are liable to stay that way for the next three or four years if nothing changes.
I don't expect immediate success, but I think the team would be farther ahead if Chevy had picked a direction and stuck with it instead of trying to have his cake and eat it too. I'm not asking him to pull off a miraculous improvement overnight, but he
needs to decide what direction this team is headed and lead it that way, even if it involves a painful step or two backwards, instead of hedging his bets and trying to pull in both directions at once.
