While, on a certain level, I can understand having one more year of mediocre vets getting their teeth kicked in, instead of the kids that aren't quite ready...
It's a lousy feeling, that the vast majority of the upcoming season simply won't provide much of a reason to watch.
If it was Rasmussen and Zadina right from the jump, I might be curious how they handled it, regardless of how many losses piled up. If Hronek was a lock to play 60+ games, I'd wanna know how he does, even if they team was in the basement of the standings. But Vanek the sequel? Green the sequel? They could each score 60 points, and I still wouldn't want to watch them, because they're just placeholders. Stopgaps. Artificial life support, meant to keep the coma patient breathing until the new organs hopefully take hold, and the genuine recovery begins.
If Olympia Entertainment can make a buck by convincing a few thousand poor saps to shell out season tickets on a "competitive team", kudos to them...I guess. But ultimately it's just another year of bad bad hockey, with very few pearls amidst all the swine.
More power to any of you who can stomach it enough to tune in regularly. But wake me when they're done killing time, because debating things online is as far as I go until then.