2 years into a rebuild and 20 points out of a playoff spot is the time to build a competitive team? Time to start competing? Time to sign Gaudreau, Gudbranson?
IMO yes if you have a very young team (they did) and are on a good trajectory. Gaudreau I think is the level of player you sign if you have the chance, you could draft 1st several years in a row and not get a player of his level.
I never liked the Gudbranson signing, I get why Jarmo did it, but that's just too much money for the level of player he is. Substitute Gudbranson with someone who is actually worth that contract and I'd have no problems with it.
What I said last year:
Johnson, Sillinger, Marchenko, Jiricek, Chinakhov all to the AHL (where a lot of them belong anyway). Gavrikov traded before the season, same with Nyquist (who we got no value from due to him being hurt).
In hindsight maybe but that would've been pretty demoralizing for a team that actually had a fighting chance for a wild card spot the previous season. Yeah they ended up with only 81 points but they were right in the mix until Jenner got hurt, was it mid-March or something.
Our “Good” CBJ team started 3-9, the team above would be terrible - looks like a Chicago/SJS level team.
Again hindsight, though if I recall correctly you were for the tank all along (even before the season started) so not 'blaming' you for it. But that's way worse start than I think almost anyone expected and let's not forget they lost Laine in game1 and it just got worse from there. A ridiculous season.
Assuming everyone stays healthy, even with your tank moves I'm not sure that's a legit tanking team. You have Werenski, Gaudreau, Laine, Voracek and Jenner. The way things went, you can pretty much scratch off Werenski and Voracek and both Laine and Jenner missed significant time, but nobody knew that beforehand.
Yet Johnson is not a C, and looks to be a winger. Sillinger struggled in year two and is middle 6 potential C anyway.
It's too early to say whether Johnson is a C or not. He could become a legit #1C. I hoped they had given him more looks there but we don't know what Jarmo is thinking or what Larsen was thinking. Maybe they really just want to give him a bit more time to grow into his man strength as a winger.
Sillinger should've been sent AHL last spring already or even earlier but that said his rookie year showed a lot of promise, they just needed to send him down when it became apparent he's struggling. I saw solid 2C upside, I still do but with more uncertainty.
Again, in hindsight tanking makes perfect sense, but I would've been pissed off had they actually made such moves, but of course I didn't foresee the ridiculous amount of injuries, complete lack of goaltending or Larsen failing so miserably after seemingly doing a quite good job in his first year. The injuries are just shit luck, maybe on the latter two points I was being too optimistic, but I have no regrets
The way they played 21-22 they earned my optimism despite the obvious problems.