But you said this last year. And we ended up extending Seeler, extending Hathaway, not trading Laughton, signing Johnson to another year, keeping Laughton forever more.
Last summer was more of a holding pattern, they had cleared out most of the veterans they didn't want to keep. They knew Michkov and Fedotov were coming over.
They did listen to offers for Laughton, no rumors that they were offered substantial picks for Hathaway or Seeler, so more value as veteran depth than mid-round draft picks.
Really don't care about draft picks outside the 3rd rd, and even 3rd rd picks have limited value (for every Ghost, there are 10 misses). Maybe Barkey, McDonald, Knuble, Sotheran, Bump will be exceptions, but not betting on them.
You go into every season knowing you'll need 14 forwards and 8 D-men b/c injuries are inevitable.
You don't know which young players will step up, just look at prospect lists and who actually makes it a year later.
So you want enough veteran depth so you don't have to rush prospects who clearly aren't ready.
Note when they play kids, they generally give them more PT than the marginal veterans.
Grans 14:36, Johnson 13:22.
Luchanko 14:03, Poehling 13:46
Even in a cameo, give the kid enough PT to get a feel.
You realize the only reason Andrae is in the lineup is because of injuries, right? He was blocked by players that shouldn't be on this team
You know if Andrae played like this in LHV, at some point he would have been recalled, due to injury or a starter slumping.
How did Lou Gehrig get his shot?