they will do all that and they will again be chasing a wildcard spot, clogging the neutral zone and winning or losing based on goalie performance and the supposed core 6 will just be another year older and the team will still not be moving closer to being a contender.
The issue with this team is not the bottom 9 forwards or bottom 4 dmen. its that this team is devoid of true top line forwards and a true #1 dman
Huberdeau (2nd line LW)-Kadri (2nd line centre)-Coronato (top 6 forward)
Zary (middle 6 forward)-Frost(middle 6 centre)-Sharangovich(middle 6 forward)
Farabee (middle 6 forward)-Backs (3rd line centre)-Coleman(middle 6 forward)
Honzek (rookie with middle 6 forward upside) /Lombo (4th line forward)-_____-Pospy (bottom 6 forward)
Kerins (rookie with middle 6 forward upside)/Stromgren (rookie with middle 6 forward upside), Klapka (4th line forward)
The forward rating above are generous because based on the issues with scoring Huberdeau/Kadri and Coronato all stay at 2nd line the the rest are all bottom 6
Bahl (#4 dman)-Rasmus (#2/3 dman
____-Weegar (#2/3 dman)
____-Pachal (bottom pair)/Parekh (shelter rookie #1 d upside)
Bean (bottom pair), Solovyov (sheltered rookie/bottom 4), Kuznetsov (rookie, bottom 4), Brzustewicz (rookie, top pair upside),
I mean, I agree that this roster is not a contender and no UFA signing will make us one. We’re obviously missing a 1C.
But people seem to forget that, in the past year and a half, we traded 7-8 top of the roster players for packages of futures/younger guys (Toff, Lindholm, Hanifin, Tanev, Mang, Marky, Zadorov). As a result, we now have multiple 1sts in 3 straight years, our prospect pool has quickly improved from bottom-10 to upper-middle of the pack, and we acquired a handful of 22-26 year old assets that could be key complimentary guys (Bahl, Frost, Farabee) when we start pushing to contend. We drafted a potential #1D and our rookie goalie is making a push for the Calder.
All that to say, I don’t know how you can look at Conroy’s moves the past year and a half and think that this team isn’t moving towards being a contender in the future. Obviously we still need a #1C prospect, but we aren’t getting that in a trade for Rasmus or Coleman or Kadri. We just have to keep drafting and accumulating futures. This is likely the only way (unless we stumble into another Eichel situation and pull trigger).
I’m all for trading Rasmus in the summer too if there’s a 2026 1st+ on the table, but I would then target a replacement top-4 dman to a 2-3 year deal who could help shelter Parekh/our other young dmen and also be used a potential trade chip. If that is our only significant move this summer, we could still finish anywhere from bottom-5 to borderline playoff team. There’s so much parity in the league these days that anything could happen.
But the overall point is we need to stop complaining that we aren’t magically a contender overnight. We probably would’ve been a bottom-7 team if it wasn’t for Wolf, and we can’t fault anyone for that. We have to be patient and build through the draft and let the pieces fall into place.
