Yeah you're right on Martinez, he's already gone in my eyes I guess lol.
I think that is about the same win % as with him in the lineup? that is 12 points in 19 games we have 54 in 78 pretty close.
I don't see us adding 2 Im sure we are going to go after one and then maybe a trade?
It's a must. The moves this off-season will not just help us next year, but it will be a huge step for the year after. If we have another half-ass off-season like the last one, it will make it very hard for us to even be competitive in 2 years. You can't expect your team to make a huge leap the following season, but you can hope they make a big step to make the leap the year after. It takes time to get out of the gutter in this league. The Red Wings, Sabres, and Hockey Club will let you know that. Even the Senators are just now making the playoffs after drafting some huge hits in Tkachuk, Stutzle, Sanderson.
Not buying this theory at all...if they go out and give 7-8 year deals to Ehlers and Boeser there is some chance the deals end up awful and mess up the competitive window. Landing McKenna and another top forward in 27 would not screw up the competitive window, it would probably raise the ceiling of the team more than signing a couple UFAs that ultimately get the team to the 8-12 range in the lotto and draft there the next years. Ottawa, Detroit, etc went out and started to spend money in UFA, Ottawa traded a top 10 pick for Cat, Detroit signed Cat, Buffalo gave away Eichel for cents on the dollar over a surgery, its not as simple as those teams refused to spend more money, they never accumulated several top 3 picks
Landing Mckenna is a fools chance. Hoping your team is awful another year for a (75% chance that you don't get Mckenna) chance to draft him is backwards thinking. It would also drive this team back another year. The Hawks prospect pool is as big as it can get after this season and they need to stop prioritizing getting high picks. You get into a loser mind-set just to become the new Buffalo Sabres
their prospect pool is quantity at this point, they need more quality at forward, saying that stocking up another few top 3-5 picks to address forward will put them backward is debatable, signing UFAs entering their late 20s to early 30s to a basement team is a rehash of Seth Jones...
Regardless of how improved we are after this off-season, we will still likely get a top 5-8 draft pick in 2026. We have to have faith that our scouts are good enough to get us a top forward prospect. Just because we improve a good deal, doesn't mean we can't get a good prospect in the draft. Imagine us getting a Victor Eklund/Jake O'brien level prospect in the 2026 draft, then another solid player like Jett Luchanko level prospect in the 2027 draft. All of this while also improving the team and having late 1st round/2nd round picks that could potentially be huge hits for us
I'm not forgoing the increased odds of finding blue chip talent by drafting top 3-5 to sign a couple big ticket UFAs that could be anchor contracts in 3 years and draft 8-12 and hope we get lucky....
If anyone signing this year becomes an anchor contract in 3 years, it means the current group of prospects hit very, very, hard. Which would probably mean no lotto picks anyway.
not seeing how the prospects have anything to do with a mid-tier UFA signing being a bad contract in 3 years...do we really want an Ehlers, Boeser Bennett type on a 7-8 year deal at 8-9m aav as they approach 30 when this team is nowhere near competing?
We can easily move either for good assets this Summer if we so chose. When you see what UFA's are going to get in both term and rate, those 2 are going to look like bargains.
