1865
Alpha Couturier
I feel like we're living in purgatory, in that eternal no-mans-land that gets you nowhere in the NHL. The Fletcher specialty, the corridor of mediocrity. We're not bad enough to pick high, we're not good enough to stand any chance of a cup. We're getting older and our farm has dried up. We're preening around during a unprecedented period of Metro strength and our best player is 34 with an expiring contract. Is it time to blow it up? I'm genuinely on the fence.
In the "yes" column, we're going nowhere. If we let this play out, we finish 4th or 5th in the division every season and we end up wasting Hart's career as we did G's and Couts'. We can try to offload AV, JvR, Hayes and all of the terrible veterans. We could start again and build around Hart, TK, Provy and Farabee. Plus, we may get the bittersweet joy of G getting the Kimmo treatment and maybe getting the cup he deserves elsewhere.
In the "no" column, i don't trust Fletcher and I don't believe he'd be able to do any better with a mulligan. He's learned nothing during his NHL career, we're a carbon copy of his 2021 Minnesota team. He inherited a club with one of the top farm systems in the NHL and we're somehow worse now than when he took over. In only a few short years we're somehow finding ourselves in a position where we're playing Nate Thompson and Keith Yandle every night. Also, it would be a sin to intentionally waste another 3 years of Hart on a restock and losing G and Couts would be heartbreaking.
So.. i don't know. Do we keep going on, knowing in the back of our mind exactly what's going to happen, or do we go for the mystery box? The team is what it is but the reboot could be anything, it could even be a boat.
In the "yes" column, we're going nowhere. If we let this play out, we finish 4th or 5th in the division every season and we end up wasting Hart's career as we did G's and Couts'. We can try to offload AV, JvR, Hayes and all of the terrible veterans. We could start again and build around Hart, TK, Provy and Farabee. Plus, we may get the bittersweet joy of G getting the Kimmo treatment and maybe getting the cup he deserves elsewhere.
In the "no" column, i don't trust Fletcher and I don't believe he'd be able to do any better with a mulligan. He's learned nothing during his NHL career, we're a carbon copy of his 2021 Minnesota team. He inherited a club with one of the top farm systems in the NHL and we're somehow worse now than when he took over. In only a few short years we're somehow finding ourselves in a position where we're playing Nate Thompson and Keith Yandle every night. Also, it would be a sin to intentionally waste another 3 years of Hart on a restock and losing G and Couts would be heartbreaking.
So.. i don't know. Do we keep going on, knowing in the back of our mind exactly what's going to happen, or do we go for the mystery box? The team is what it is but the reboot could be anything, it could even be a boat.