II’m always surprised to find that there’s a lot of people who are positive that we’re going to turn it around in a two or three years. I really feel like this Team will only start competing again in year four or (worse) five
2022-23: Year 1 <-- We are here
2023-24: Year 2
2024-25: Year 3
2025-26: Year 4 <-- If all things go well, then this is when GM Verbeek starts making moves from outside the org.
Trust me, I was forced to watch this debacle with my cousins who are all diehard Bruins fans. I think a lot of things have to go right in order for this team to compete in about 2 to 3 years. I don’t think people realize that we just lack skill everywhere, even on offense. Terry, Zegras and McTavish all can’t do it on their own.
I wonder what’s going to happen on defense and more importantly Gibson. If we trade him, just sets us back even more
My feeling is a majority of this board believe we should have competed this year with this roster. It's why many believe a new coach will change fortunes. I've already compared this year's start with last year's start with a change in GM, a loss of PP assistant coach, and significant roster turnover both at the NHL as well as AHL levels. Rather than admit the roster is shit and it's a rebuild, which our own new GM admitted in early October of this season, fans still believe we should be competing for a playoff spot.
2020-21: first 20 games, 6 - 10 - 4 (16 pts), five regulation wins
2021-22: first 20 games, 10 - 7 - 3 (23 pts), seven regulation wins
2022-23: first 20 games, 6 - 13 - 1 (13 pts), one regulation win
When we win, it's terrible for the tank. When we lose, it's coach Eakins or former GM Murray's fault and the team doesn't compete. It's a very whimsical logic from game to game.
This Bruins game was a debacle before it even began. Our first meeting with Boston, they were missing great talents and Lindholm carrying the Bruins defense. Since then, they've got those missing talents back, including #1D McAvoy. Must be nice having two 1D's on the same team.
Before Verbeek, I thought our forward youth core was set with RW Terry, C Zegras, C Lundy, and C McTavish. They all just needed development time to be considered established. I expected that quartet to carry the future since three out of the four I factored in to become NHL stars. Under Verbeek, we're projected a top-4 pick in this year draft and that top four can contribute either right away (Bedard), one-and-done (Fantilli and Carlsson), or four years later (Michkov). That would give the Ducks four top-6 forwards with their youth core.
At netminder, we are deep with Gibby, Stolarz, and Dostal. We drafted a Stolarz clone in Alexander in 2021. Then Verbeek acquired G Clang in a trade. The Ducks have strong depth in net. I'm confident in Dostal if he's the future, as long as he doesn't start back-to-back games.
The blueline will be the hardest to rise from the dead. It didn't help that last year the two NCAA guys didn't sign. It also didn't help that Drysdale incurred a season ending injury early this season. It also didn't help that Andersson is made out of glass for the past two seasons in the AHL. IMO, getting the two NCAA guys will help shorten the timeline to relevancy as they're probably better than Vaaks, White, and Benoit. Although everyone's on the Zell and Minty wagon, I'm more excited about Hinds and his defensive play b/c it looks to translate well to the NHL level and something we desperately need.
Because we have a lot of prospective talent depth on the blueline with even more draft picks coming, Anaheim can use them as trade capital for NHL talent.
2025-26 season is when we should be making strides to add outside talent and gunning for a playoff spot.
