Problem is, there's no potential cornerstone pieces in the pipeline with the possible exception of Murashov.
Sure there are some nice pieces, but no one who'll lead us to legit contention.
Best analogy I could use is a nice dinner. You have your drink, a very good side dish, a great dessert, but no steak.
That's why going up in the standings this time of year is so frustrating. And I've heard pundits or wanna be experts talk about ''winning cultures''? We've turned into a mediocre culture.
We were a horrible team in the early 2000's. And in the process drafted a core 2hd to none! NO, that scenario is not in front of us. You're not getting four cornerstone pieces like that including two all time greats, I get that. But you gotta start somewhere. And if we're being honest we haven't even done that yet. Not to any large degree anyhow. Incremental improvement, sure. But we could have made a huge jump if we handled this deadline better and shipped off Rakell for a tidy sum. Keeping him helped contribute to this ungodly winning streak. Not great for a team that needs cornerstone pieces for the future.
IF say we drafted say 6th OA that could have been a very nice piece. And arguably one that would have provided us our best prospect over the last decade or so. Now, that seems like a pipedream. So essentially we're going nowhere and getting very little for it! That's how you never improve. Just stay in the mushy middle by winning meaningless games that help no one! Not the team as a whole, not the core (if they ever wanna see the post season anyhow), and the not the fanbase.
I think our fanbase has a warped view of how premium asset collection should go though. I think the general fan has been conditioned to believe that - oh, you're bad, you get a high draft pick, you get another Crosby, then we are good again! To suggest we've been spoiled over the years (Lemieux then Jagr; MAF, Sid, Geno, Staal) is the understatement of the year. It's been quite awhile (20 or 40 years depending on how you want to look at it) since we've had to put the work in to be bad enough to get those high quality players.
Everyone wants those cornerstone/franchise pieces but no one wants the pain and wait associated of getting them. I mean, 2001 to 2006 and dare I say into 2007, this team was shit. There was light at the end of the tunnel after 04/05 when we got Sid and we had Malkin (but whose situation was unknown). But after Jagr left until that point, there was a lot of pain in following the Penguins.
Also, I think the idea of "luck" is very much underplayed. You have to be bad at the right time and now with the lottery, get the right pick. Sometimes your 3x 1sts are MAF, Ovi, Sid and other times is Hall, RNH, and Yakupov. If you're not bad at the right time and get lucky, you turn into the Buffalo Sabres.
I think Sullivan is solely focused on putting together what he views as the "guys who give them the best chance to win", as he has used that exact phrase multiple times. The more telling quote that aligns with my theory regarding Sullivan is right here:
"I’m absolutely willing to put them in prominent roles. But they have to be effective and they’ve got to be ready."
I think it's more that Sullivan is extremely impatient and is unwilling to give young players the rope they need to figure out their game in the NHL, so if they're not instantly effective, he'll pull the plug on them. His focus is on putting out the "best" team in his eyes, so if a young guy is struggling and isn't instantly succeeding in a role, he'll scrap the idea and try something else. He's not willing to sit through the growing pains that every single young player will have in the NHL, which is why he's ill suited to be the coach of a rebuilding team.
That's not an unfair statement for Sully. I would suggest that there are several factors at play that probably go untalked about. The "roster with the best chance to win" is absolutely true. We can argue which roster that "should" be, but I tend to believe that Sullivan believes it's the best chance to win (no matter how much I may disagree with it). So that's one factor. The next is, in doing so, he is maintaining that "winning culture," which I believe Sullivan believes the organization has. He's promoting the idea that "no matter what, we are trying to win every single game." Maintaining that culture is probably a high priority for everyone in the organization, whether or not it's "mandated" by FSG. It took a long time to build it so they aren't going to dump it at the first sight of struggle. Next, "they have to be ready" is fair, and I think that reiterates the sentiment of "winning culture" even further. The argument there is quickly turning into "well, you're NOT winning so you may as well use this time to start developing guys even if it doesn't put you in the "best" position to win each night because that is what is ultimately "best" for the players and organization moving forward.
We are at that super awkward organizational moment where we are trying to balance several priorities and the org doesn't want to state which one is the top priority. It's the cop out of "well, they are ALL top priorities" but in practice, they can't be. That's why the gears seem to be grinding a bit here.
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