What I want is what every other fan wants here on the forums; to win a Stanley Cup (or two). Yes, we are going to bicker and fight about how to get there but the two goals that I want this franchise to show is long-term sustainability and flexibility. I don't want to be Carolina and a one and done team that wallows at the bottom for years after a successful Cup run. I want this organization to be like Los Angeles or Chicago or Detroit, where it isn't a question on if we get to the playoffs but how far we get in the playoffs.
What makes teams like Los Angeles, Chicago and Detroit so good is their flexibility. It isn't a surprise that they have some of the better development programs in the NHL, which creates turnover and tinkering with the roster to see what works and what doesn't work. And yes, no team is going to have the best prospect system in the league and the best team in the league, that isn't feasible. What you can have is a top 15 prospect system and a top 10 team that is competitive year after year.
Fletcher has shown that he isn't afraid to make the big trades to make a competitive team but he also hasn't shown a lot of flexibility that makes him a top tier GM. He's decent at acquiring talent (Dubnyk, Kobasew, Coyle) but terrible at selling it (Kobasew, Brunette, Mitts). He's also made some blunders that have really tightened Minnesota's ability to make moves to continue improving their team. You'd expect that from a rookie GM but someone 5-6 years into their job?
His drafting has been pretty mediocre as well but that could be due to his scouts or the guys handling these prospects after they are drafted. No one expects to hit every draft or every mid-round draft pick. In fact, I am pretty hopeful for guys like Belpedio, Labbe, and Graovac will develop into good players. My argument with mid-round picks isn't these guys should develop into NHL players for the Wild but they should have the potential to develop into NHL players, period.
If we can develop them into a useful player that we can trade like Clutterbuck, all the better. But it's about creating sustainability and flexibility, something that Riser was never able to do and that Fletcher is struggling with.
You can't keep letting players walk and giving up assets without sacrificing depth. I agree that Minnesota has a deep team in the NHL (or when everyone is healthy) but that depth is only pond deep. Once injuries start to bunch up, that's when you see the depth problems Minnesota has. We've gotten better with depth where Warren Peters isn't a first line center because of signings but that's because they came outside the organization and that ties up cap space as you're going to be competing for another guy's service. Maybe you get lucky? Maybe you don't? and they fit in.
I am taking a macro view instead of a micro view of this situation, which will always cause friction. Franchises sometime have to look at the micro and the macro view to really get a good look at the organization and they have to be willing to make some sacrifices. Some of them won't work out (Barker), some of them will (el Nino) but you have to be willing to make them and be willing to understand that sometimes in order to make a team better, you have to be the buyer and the seller.
