Our rebuild was a failure. Our high end draft picks from 2012-2016 (Grigorenko, Girgensons, McCabe, Ristolainen, Zadorov, Compher, Reinhart, Guhle, Nylander, and Eichel) and our sleepers from those years (Bailey, Baptiste, Peterson, Possler, Malone, Karabacek, Borgen, and Pu) never delivered. The latest season was four years after this crop of prospects—the time when they should be leading the franchise. Again, it did not happen. The ever-revolving door for the front office and coaches are the likely blame, not the players.
The next batch of youngsters will mostly be here within the next year or so. Our big names: Mitts, Luukkonen, Dahlin, Samuelsson, Johnson, Asplund, Quinn, Peterka, Cozens, and Power) . Our sleepers (laaksonen, Bryson, Pekar, and Portillo). Our picks after Power made one thing clear, the rest of the reinforcements aren’t coming any time soon.
A defensive core of Dahlin and Power along with a forward core of Mitts, Cozens, Quinn IS our next team for the foreseeable future. But there is a reason for optimism!
One: We are not treading out the same crap. It’s something new! Maybe it’ll also be crap, but maybe not. And at the very least, it’ll be new crap! By god hutton won’t be our goalie! We won’t be having Ristolainen debates every GDT. We won’t be bitching why Reinhart isn’t at center. And (sadly) some of you won’t get to complain about Eichel looking like he is sulking. This will be a new team. That’s FUN
Two: we have some decent supporting players. Joker, Oloffson, R2, and whatever Eichel brings back. Hey those are maybe good young players to go along with the core. If the new core works, and these players develop…why can’t it work.
Three: cap space! We are going to have a lot of cap in a flat cap world. Perhaps for once we can find the right vets to overpay on short term deals! Thow in some vets and fix the goaltending. Maybe we get lucky and compete this year
Four: new coach and management. For the first time, we have a coach who doesn’t seem incompetent. Played and developed the young kids. LOL’d at the idea of not playing reinhart at center. And what’s that? A GM who values skill at the draft. A bunch of fast skilled players were drafted…regardless of size and ethnicity. COOL
Five: the main reason to be optimistic…WHY NOT. It’s hockey. It’s a game. We’re fans. It’s so much more fun to be optimistic. This is a new group of players. New GM. New Coach. New season. Give them a shot?
I bet we make the playoffs next year and things change. You’re a goof if you don’t agree. If I’m wrong, that’s okay. I’ll make the same bet next year
The next batch of youngsters will mostly be here within the next year or so. Our big names: Mitts, Luukkonen, Dahlin, Samuelsson, Johnson, Asplund, Quinn, Peterka, Cozens, and Power) . Our sleepers (laaksonen, Bryson, Pekar, and Portillo). Our picks after Power made one thing clear, the rest of the reinforcements aren’t coming any time soon.
A defensive core of Dahlin and Power along with a forward core of Mitts, Cozens, Quinn IS our next team for the foreseeable future. But there is a reason for optimism!
One: We are not treading out the same crap. It’s something new! Maybe it’ll also be crap, but maybe not. And at the very least, it’ll be new crap! By god hutton won’t be our goalie! We won’t be having Ristolainen debates every GDT. We won’t be bitching why Reinhart isn’t at center. And (sadly) some of you won’t get to complain about Eichel looking like he is sulking. This will be a new team. That’s FUN
Two: we have some decent supporting players. Joker, Oloffson, R2, and whatever Eichel brings back. Hey those are maybe good young players to go along with the core. If the new core works, and these players develop…why can’t it work.
Three: cap space! We are going to have a lot of cap in a flat cap world. Perhaps for once we can find the right vets to overpay on short term deals! Thow in some vets and fix the goaltending. Maybe we get lucky and compete this year
Four: new coach and management. For the first time, we have a coach who doesn’t seem incompetent. Played and developed the young kids. LOL’d at the idea of not playing reinhart at center. And what’s that? A GM who values skill at the draft. A bunch of fast skilled players were drafted…regardless of size and ethnicity. COOL
Five: the main reason to be optimistic…WHY NOT. It’s hockey. It’s a game. We’re fans. It’s so much more fun to be optimistic. This is a new group of players. New GM. New Coach. New season. Give them a shot?
I bet we make the playoffs next year and things change. You’re a goof if you don’t agree. If I’m wrong, that’s okay. I’ll make the same bet next year
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