One interesting nugget from this morning: Armstrong and Stillman both feel this is a playoff team, which is a notably different expectation than last year. They were bang on with their expectations going into last year.
Armstrong gave an answer that was along the lines of "I have sets of independent expectations that necessitate playoffs".
Armstrong suggested we're in 'team building mode' a la 2010-2012, and alluded to his "vision" for this year, which he declined to share in detail, which is interesting to me. The messaging is way different than last year, and very different from years where we were clearly competing for the playoffs. He was very adamant last year that "this roster", "this group of players" is going to have to figure it out and compete. This year, he's much more cagey in how he's referring to the roster.
"Visions" are nearly synonymous with "best case scenarios" — I think there's clearly expectations he's put on himself/the team around how this roster will look coming out of camp vs. the one that (in his mind) will be going to the playoffs. That may mean adding and/or it may be expecting younger players to usurp veterans so that he can recoup picks and get a more final version of "the team" playing together.
I just find it noteworthy that he mentioned his 'secret vision' in such close proximity to how thin our draft is going to be this year/how easy it is to move vets vs young players.
www.nhl.com
