I just don't see any reason to chase Marner and try to draw him here aside from the vain, near embarrassing attempt to pretend the team's not cooked. Like, you're probably talking about around, or maybe north of MacKinnon money, and he's absolutely gonna demand a full NMC. For what? Two years of Marner plodding around in this system, for this coach, lowering his value the entire time? I dunno man. Reeks of sad desperation. Then, down the line, you're gonna have this like $13M AAV guy you need to retain on to move, and you've gotta navigate the NMC you've 100% given him to sign. For a 1st and some change? At the cost of almost guaranteeing you sabotage your chances at landing McKenna and Dupont by adding a guy of his talent for a couple years? Nah, no shot.
I don't see why Marner picks this team either. He knows they're donezo, the whole league does except FSG and Dubas. He might like Sid, he might like Dubas, but he knows he's got two years here then he's totally on his own or he's on his way out. Makes way more sense to sign on with a team like San Jose or Chicago, who have building block, franchise guys in place to grow with and work toward competing over the long haul. And he's gonna get a shitload of money/term wherever he ends up.
A few years ago? Like after the Habs play-in or the subsequent Jarry bed shitting against the Isles? Sure, throw the sink at him, see what happens. I think Marner's fantastic, and he gets unfairly trashed in Toronto for being asked to be what he isn't (a franchise building block). But I don't think chasing him makes any sense from either party anymore tbh. Way too much working against what this team should be trying to do; be as bad as possible over the next several years in order to hopefully secure building blocks.
You can, but the veteran mentors that you would want to find are pretty close to the ones that we already have.
Yes, but you need more than two. You want at least one veteran mentor on each forward line and defensive pairing. (You could possibly get away with two youngish players on the bottom pairing, but that would be it.)
Think about the veteran mentors that we had for Sid and Geno. Describe those players. Their descriptions are pretty close to the players we have now.
You're like years ahead of where you should be, dude. This team doesn't have guys to mentor yet. That's the whole f***ing point.
You're trying to get the guys you need vets to mentor and help ease into the league. This team's not even at that stage yet, but when they get there, finding your random middle 6 guys like Rakell and Rust and all that is the easy part. Hell, by all accounts McG seems to have a lot of leadership qualities to him. By the time this team has a shot to luck into McKenna and Dupont, McG will be 23. He'll have had time to develop and learn from guys like Sid and Geno. Hopefully the same can be said about guys like Broz, Koivunen, Pickering, etc. who will all be around 23-24 if they don't bust out by then. Hopefully the crop of prospects we have now can be the like, Colby Armstrongs and Brooks Orpiks and Ryan Malones of yesteryear to be here and established by the time the big picks come into town.
I dunno. I think you're way too concerned with an easily fixable thing, and years early on your concern to boot. The focus right now should be on being as bad as possible to land those franchise pillars. Then you go about throwing some cash at a Guerin or Rakell or a Rust or a Tiffoli, etc. in FA or via trade to act as mentors for your stable of guys like McKenna, Dupont, Martone, McG and Co.
