How so? Back then Roy was coach of the year, MacKinnon was a future superstar (sure thing), Duchene was a season away from becoming a PPG guy, Landy and ROR were so young and going to get significantly better...on D we had up-and-coming Barrie along with a proven #1D in EJ.
Now Mack has question marks, ROR is gone and both Landy and Duchene didn't improve. EJ looks more like a #2 than a #1. Out of the core, only Barrie lived up to the expectations.
Also, the team as a whole has the exact same weaknesses that it had 2 years ago so not only our players didn't get as good as expected, but there was no improvement as a team either.
Sure there's Rantanen and Bigras now but the pipeline is still empty after that. We even wasted another #1 pick (Bleackley) so we can add him to Hishon and Siemens to the failure folder.
I'd not say the future looks brighter now than it was back then. Far, far from that actually.
Mack always had question marks, Landy and Duchene have become more consistent and play to their strengths better than they used to. ROR has been replaced by Grigo who has infinitely more offensive upside that ROR and is impressive defensively at only 21. EJ is exactly what he has always been, if you consider that a #1 or #2 that's up to you, but he's still as good as he always was. The difference now is that we have Bigras, Zadorov, and Barrie who are all looking like capable top-4 guys in the next couple of years, a depth of support that EJ hasn't had since he was acquired. We have a more than capable back-up so if Varly goes down the team doesn't go into autoloss mode.
For once, we have youngsters that are being kept down in the AHL to develop because we aren't in desperate need of them in the NHL lineup. We may not have a cupboard overflowing with blue-chip prospects yet, but we also aren't rushing talent into the NHL either.
With the re-shuffling of organizational depth with the ROR trade I think the roster is much better placed to be built upon moving forward, as opposed to having 5 forwards and 1 D that people consider the core, we still have 4-5 forwards, and 4 D IMO. If Boedker stays you can add another forward to that list (and we haven't even touched on Compher).
If you can't get excited about this team's potential I feel for you, but I can't say that I agree.