no one is saying stop drafting. no one is saying dont fill the pipeline.
all im saying is use the picks and players we have to fill in this roster. same as always. but lets also move this thing along.
im not buying for one second the notion that we need to keep "rebuilding". you are always technically rebuilding i guess but once we resigned #20 for 7 more years, and having bread and mika and now shesty in place, its time to focus on the next phase. playoffs. and that means improving the roster now.
we arent selling assets now. we arent sending a letter to the fans anymore. time to improve what we have for next season.
no one is saying return to signing expensive FA's like the dark old days. not gonna happen.
lets move this thing along. were close but saying "stay the course" and saying "we arent close yet" is disingenuous.
I don't think we are close to "cup contender," yet. We may have the pieces already in hand to become close: Once Kakko, Kravtsov, and Chytil turn into stars, but we aren't there yet.
You also must acknowledge there is a difference between being a playoff contender that can win a round, versus a true Cup Contender that will not only be favored and win a round, but can and will win multiple rounds and has a good chance at winning four rounds.
We are right there with the former. We are not far from basically being able to match the Islanders, Hurricanes, Blue Jackets, etc, on a consistent basis. But we aren't close to being able to go toe-to-toe with Boston, Washington, St. Louis, probably not with teams like Philadelphia or Colorado either over the course of 7 games. Maybe in one series, but in 3 or 4 series? No.
What's the rush?
You say "stop selling" but I say, yes, continue to sell. Continue to identify the Brady Skjei pieces who do not fit here long term and sell them. Of course we are much more likely to make the playoffs with Skjei here, but another crack at a Chytil type player helps us way more down the line than just cracking into the playoffs helps us now.
It is true we are running out of pieces to sell, perhaps. Kreider was one, but we bought instead. Fast I suspect we self-rented. Buch and Strome are two pieces, though, that I am listening on. Same for Georgiev.
I guess my point is: I would not approach this offseason looking to add veterans for the goal of making a playoff push next year specifically. This is just a wild hypothetical, I am not advocating it, but if, say, Taylor Hall wanted to sign here, and we could somehow make that contract work long term, yes, ok, I'll sign him, he's a former Hart winner at age 29.
But I am not at the stage where I'm running out to give Nick Bonino $4.5m a season to solidify our bottom 6 because it's bleeding like a sieve (and it is). I'd rather suffer through another year with a sub-par bottom 6, play the kids, and continue to stockpile that cap space for the future, sign the kids to long term extensions with the savings, and get another decent draft pick.
