Big Friggin Dummy
Registered User
- Feb 22, 2019
- 24,551
- 23,181
The more I think about the current front office/coaching issues, the structure of the team, and the big 3 of the core, the more I wonder if it's time to just bite the bullet and rebuild. I don't think Geno or Letang are washed up, but I do wonder just how much longer it'll be before they start to dramatically slow down.
I still don't believe this team will ever approach any of them and ask them to waive their NTC, but I do wonder if Geno would want to finish out his current deal elsewhere. He's spoke publicly about seriously thinking about leaving to be "the guy" elsewhere, but he stuck around because he knew Sid was his best shot at winning Cups. That's the only thing that matters to Geno, I think. If he looks at the current state of the team, I wouldn't blame him if he started to explore his options in chasing one last Cup on a team much closer to that goal than we are (or will be for a couple more years).
Letang's a guy I don't think we can trade while still trying to remain competitive. Not that we're competitive now, but if you remove Letang's presence from this blueline corps, you're essentially done even thinking about the Cup for several years.
I think I'm sort of ambivalent on the whole situation. On one hand, I want to see what a new GM/coaching staff can do, and if they can manage to make the right moves to get one last Cup out of the era of Sid/Geno/Letang. On the other hand, I think I'd be totally fine accepting the reality that we're too far off from legit contention to fix things before Geno and Letang's current contracts are up. Maybe it is time to throw in the towel and go for the rebuild after all.
I still don't believe this team will ever approach any of them and ask them to waive their NTC, but I do wonder if Geno would want to finish out his current deal elsewhere. He's spoke publicly about seriously thinking about leaving to be "the guy" elsewhere, but he stuck around because he knew Sid was his best shot at winning Cups. That's the only thing that matters to Geno, I think. If he looks at the current state of the team, I wouldn't blame him if he started to explore his options in chasing one last Cup on a team much closer to that goal than we are (or will be for a couple more years).
Letang's a guy I don't think we can trade while still trying to remain competitive. Not that we're competitive now, but if you remove Letang's presence from this blueline corps, you're essentially done even thinking about the Cup for several years.
I think I'm sort of ambivalent on the whole situation. On one hand, I want to see what a new GM/coaching staff can do, and if they can manage to make the right moves to get one last Cup out of the era of Sid/Geno/Letang. On the other hand, I think I'd be totally fine accepting the reality that we're too far off from legit contention to fix things before Geno and Letang's current contracts are up. Maybe it is time to throw in the towel and go for the rebuild after all.
Yeah, that's true too. I don't know, but again, the regular season is a whole different animal. I know we won without Letang in 2017, but I feel like that was a crazy anomaly, and the blueline by committee just took their games to an entirely new, unsustainable level.The team kept going just fine when Letang was injured this season. I don't know how much weight I'd put on that, but it's a pattern over the past few seasons. Letang gets injured and we all panic and everything is fine.
It feels really counter-intuitive given he has a massive impact when he is playing most the time but I'm not sure he's actually a guy who's needed.