Speculation: 2024-2025 General Lightning Discussion II: "Atlanticly" challenged
- Thread starter These Are The Days
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aylib
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JTBF81
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As long as JBB addresses the middle/bottom 6, they'll go past the 1st round and potentially make a deep run. The sky is falling crowd around here because of one bad.month is sad.
JTBF81
Registered User
Lol, right on cue with another garbage take, as expected.
Todd1a
Kucherov or prospect
I don’t know if we can make the playoffs though
Zwui21
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Stammertime91
TBL: TEAM OF THE CENTURY
Idk. I think the truth is probably somewhere in the middle. We aren't a contender. I don't see how you retool the bottom six to move the needle that much before the TDL either. We can make the moves and get a round or two, but even then, thats optimistic for this group. Vasy isn't 20-22 Vasy, the defense is very inconsistent and just.... mediocre? Certainly things will improve there when Moser comes back, but as much as I'd like to see a top 4 minute eating RD and middle six winger come in... I look at Foligno bouncing Girgensons head around like a bobblehead and the ineffectiveness of essentially 5/6 forwards *nightly* and it's a stretch to think we go deep. I think ECF is an overachievement if we get there.
And of course, I think the extreme that we are a Cooper tragedy heading for the basement is a joke too. I think realistically we are somewhere in the middle. Wild card team, maybe 1 or two rounds and bounced. Sadly.
These Are The Days
I need about tree fiddy
DistantThunderRep
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- Mar 8, 2018
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This passes the eye test also. Right now the team is top 5 for ga 5v5 too, as much as we shit on the defense, they aren't doing bad either. It's the lack of scoring depth from the bottom six. It all passes the eye test, except to a select few, but yeah JBB has to address it with something.
The only way to actually improve the bottom 6 scoring depth is to bring in top 6 talent. That pushes someone down ALREADY ON THE TEAM. 100% would rather try to do that then try to add "bottom 6" talent and hope they work.
He's off by one (it's been two straight years of first round exits) but otherwise he makes the obvious counter point to your autopilot responses of it's just three games, just a bad month, etc.
Not everyone on this site has a memory limited to the last week or month. The salary cap and age has made significant impacts on this team. Hedman (our playoff MVP of one cup run) is half the defensemen he was and we have no fix for that. Cernak has an old man's health at 27; his lifeline is McD at 35. Vasy is at least looking good enough to think he could get hot in the playoffs and carry this team through a round or two, but he's still not back to his prime form.
The thing to remember is how we fared against the cup champs in round 1 last year and ask if the improvement of Guentzel, McD and Moser over Stamkos and Serge has gotten us gotten us close enough where making a trade for a Duclair type player this year will make the difference it didn't last year, or will it just be more futures paid for a 1st or 2nd round exit this time.
There's no point of f***ing around with Dumba/Duclair type players anyone... in my opinion.
Either make splash moves for real talent (JBB has done that before) or don't do anything. If we don't have what it takes to bring in that level talent then so be it.
We're not a couple ehh pieces away from winning a cup. At least that's not what I see. I could be wrong
I wouldn't worry too much, sounds like this is exactly what is going to happen.
Zwui21
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Yeah, I'm confident JBB gonna target a good player that will bolster our scoring depth.
All in all, we still have to keep in mind that the re-tool started by acquiring Guentz, Moser and Geekie isn't obviously finished. It's gonna be finished during the summer, with a lot of cap space to use.
Obviously not the best in terms of timing for this season, but re-tooling on the fly with a low amount of picks/prospects and a tight cap space is no easy task.
RussianGuyovich
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Zwui21
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Point21
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Zwui21
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JTBF81
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Regardless of whether they go deep or not, yes, more futures likely will be paid to do what JBB can to give them the best chance to win. The team has considerably improved this year in almost every area, but because of a rough 3 week stretch the usual naysayers see only another 1st round exit or missing the playoffs entirely. And yes, that could happen if Tampa continues to struggle to score goals and because the East has more parity this season than it has had for many years. I don't think they will, but I won't say it isn't a possibility.
If JBB spends the futures and adds a couple of forwards, or at least one impact F and a depth Dman to stabilize the 3rd pairing (and in case of injury), they will have a chance to make a run. Aside from Toronto, Tampa isn't very far behind anyone else in the Atlantic. Even if it doesn't work out this season, the adds JBB will make, hopefully at the tdl and especially over the summer with more cap space, should set them up nicely for next year. The window is very much still open and they are still contenders imo. Only last year was that rough, as the year before the team looked good enough to make a run, but Vasy didn't when it mattered.
aylib
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Peacefool
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It'd be interesting to see how the expected goals against were before Moser went out.
