I don't see how the Habs, with Skinner playing as well as he has, +Perron-Duclair, aren't in the PO picture. Pretty sure Skinner, if Bergevin traded for him, would come with an extension.
We would not be bad enough to the point where, at the deadline, we sell, especially not if Skinner would be just as productive. But we would still not be good enough.
Your idea is not bad, it's just at least a year too early. We need more high end talent before doing that.
If we can draft top 5 again this year, well then, maybe next year is a better timing to do what you're saying. This year was just too soon.
We are still using Domi as our top guy and he's losing some of his time at center to the benefit of Shaw.
Danault is our 2nd guy. We were using Benn between 20-25min....There is a lot of crap on this team to fix. Last summer was just not the right time to go in on free agents+trades.
We would still have too many holes, and we would now guarantee our draft selection be higher. We'd go back in this circle jerk we've been in since forever.
We need more high end drafted talent, hopefully that comes this year. After that we can look at if the timing is better for what you're suggesting to do.
It sounds like by high end talent you mean an elite player like Kane, Toews when they carried Chicago to the cup, Ovechkin, Crosby, Mathews, McDavid, Laine, Hall, Marner, McKinnon, Hedman, Karlsson, Doughty, Subban, etc... Those players are extremely difficult to get even when you draft top 5. And, one is not enough. It took years of tanking for Chicago, LA, Pittsburgh to be good. The exceptions were Boston and Detroit who found elite talent (Datsyuk and Zetterberg) without tanking. Even they aren't able to maintain that, I think because the other teams have caught up to them in terms of scouting in Europe. And a big part of Bostons Success was Chara. He signed for 7.5 million AAV when the cap was 39 million. That's like signing for 15 million as a percentage of today's cap. A bold, great signing. But our gm cant even pony up 8 million to keep radulov happy, that's like 4 million against the old cap - which is what Chiarelli also signed Marc Savard for. And they drafted a lot of good talent, though not elite (lucic, Bergeron, krejci) although Bergero. Is an elite 2 way center, plus Thomas caught but fire.
But, if were going to tank it's going to take years of tanking. I would do that, but a just going to ha OP 0en with this grand owner. So I lean toward getting assets wherever we can, trading for futures, trying to increase the talent level, going a few Skinners and Radulovs drop from the sky, and hoping you can snag more Subbans and McDonaghs in bad years when you miss the playoffs. Duclair probably wont become a perennial all star. But theres a chance he will. For that small chance I'd rather invest in him than Armia or Peca.
And also, part of the reason I'd load up on offensive wingers is because if we're not good defensively, that would help the tank and give us assets to trade for good dmen at some point. I think theres ways of leading up on assets while still tanking at the same time. For example, my idea this summer was to get Perron, Skinner, Domi without giving up Galchenyuk, and Duclair, and play guys like Byron and Hudon at center. I didnt see domi and ok emerging to dramatically improve the center line. But if were strategic, we could have sent Kk to Finland. Anyways it's a hard puzzle unless you commit to tanking for 5 years.
And the bottom line is our GM doesn't even value high end talent, and our owner has a man crush on this GM. so we're doomed anyways
