Markov is coming to the end of the road...as is gionta and briere. We don't have a chance to contend with those guys at the helm after a couple years, and that means 2..tops...they are done after that. We have a very short window with them and the youngsters yes.....but i don't believe we can be a successful team with those guys in our top six and top d pairings in 2015-16, and so therefore am glad that we didn't try to get the most bang for our buck in the coming four years with subban, as opposed to in the future when tinordi and beaulieu and other d prospects will have time to develop into what we need them to be and we'll have time to find a number 2, and we'll have had the time to properly fill our top six with youth instead of briere and gionta and to a lesser extent bourque and eventually plekanec.
really....this is not a complicated concept.....i don;t get how you can be so confused.....we have core players who are OLD...and yah they may provide enough in combination with all the youth that we have had come in and a norris d-man and a great performance from price to get us to the promise land...im praying for it...im thinking about it everyday,....and will be extremely dissapointed if we don't win the cup next year, as i am every year. But your fooling yourself if your think most of these vet's can hold up for another 4 years....it's just not going to happen.
Future>now.....that is what i'm saying....mother of god.
I think I found the problem. I think we view our team differently. You seem to think our core consists of old players, I disagree. I think the older guys you speak of (Gionta, Markov..) are secondary and tertiary players. Our core is PK, Price, MaxPac, Plekanec and Gorges to me. I think for now, those are our 5 key guys. I'm hoping for a little transfer with Eller taking over Plekanec and Emelin does the same with Gorges over the next couple of years. That means the core will be MaxPac, PK, Emelin, Eller and Price.
Guys like Bourque, Gionta, Markov, Briere, are complimentary pieces, not core players.
I think some of these guys can still hold key roles, notably Markov, but the others, over the next few years can be replaced by younger free agents. So you see, I'm not saying Markov, Gionta and Briere need to be at the helm for 4 years, heck they're not even at the helm today. That's why I don't understand why you thought I viewed them as core players. They're not.
Hopefully, guys like Eller and Galchenyuk will take the reigns of the center positions within 2-3 years, making Plekanec expendable or giving the Habs a seriously dangerous and effective trio of centers to lead their respective lines.
Guys like Gionta and Briere will be replaced via free agency for other more effective players. The only older guy I'd keep is Markov, and then again, that will depend a lot on next season and his salary demands.
You and I have a different view of who our core players are.
I'm also talking about the future btw, 2-4 years is the future, not the present.