WPGChief
Registered User
Is it just me?
I can't say I'm at all impressed with what McPhee put together.
That is why McPhee did what he did. While he was certainly given better choices than previous expansion teams, he was still stuck with the idea that most of the skilled players he could have selected were UFA 2018 or 2019, with barely any RFAs. One year of being competitive isn't enough to offset the years after of trying to find players to insert in the lineup if some don't stay. In fact, being competitive instead of a bad team is actually worse for the future, as they don't get high picks (i.e. 1st to 5th), and their future farm suffers more.
In my opinion, I still think they could have done better in selecting more skilled players to trade away to other teams after to get a better haul of draft picks, but I guess there's also the idea that you gotta be "buddy-buddy" with the other GMs in this league, otherwise it's a "f*** you mentality" after and other teams refuse to trade with you, waiting for your team to go UFA and get them after.
It'll always be the system given to the Expansion Team and not wholly the team itself of why they did what they did. Next time (my idea if I were Commissioner), give em a lottery pick chance, and then an extra one at the end of the first three rounds and then pick in the middle otherwise (i.e. say they place 3rd in the lottery - then they get 3rd, 32nd (extra of 1st round), then 15th and 32nd in 2nd and 3rd rounds). Then they don't NEED to amass picks in whatever shape or form.
Plus it'll finally make the other GMs do something instead of getting off easy most of the time.