I agree to an extent. I think he's had a fantastic offseason and I love what he says/does--it's fresh. But I think some people (not you or anyone here, but main board and elsewhere) are really jumping the gun; his team has yet to truly perform, and though he's stockpiling youth and has SOME vets (Doan) on the roster to support them, I read the "I can't go out and spend money on vets blocking our youth" line as he LITERALLY can't do it, not that he wouldn't want to.
If he throws all those guys into the NHL, it's just the Oilers 2.0.
Time will tell how he does and usually writers write to get headlines, it`s better to talk and write after and not get stuck on one line specially that old vets stuff, i bet it`s case to case in his part.
Really like that writeup by JDL.
Only things I would tweak are thoughts on Gilbert and Greene. I recall reading that the Kings were big on "injury metrics," although it was never specified what that is--though this was around the time they landed JDub. To me, I read that as they look at whether a guy has nagging, repeating injuries, or a series of fluke injuries, and how they perform around those injuries. JDub had some fluke injuries but didnt dip in performance on either end; Gilbert and Greene are kind of the opposite at this point (though isn't Gilberts most recent injury the OTHER knee? Don't recall offhand).
To me, they're gambling on Gilbert having a big bounceback into top-4 ability but should be able to play bottom pairing if not--sort of like the Ehrhoff signing--just in case Greene is totally toast. I think JDL mentions all of that but in my humble opinion I think, like with Ehrhoff, they're trying to capture some cheap potential upside beyond the bottom pairing. To be clear, I don't think that will work--I think Gilbert isn't recovering into a top-4 option--but that's what I interpret to be the thought process.
I think Jason mentions it all and like well most of Kings fans like to get some new players, it`s likely how we as fans see players kind a one dimentionally, stats help but one player plays poorly and another have off season they must be replaced. Well that´s just my two cents.
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