Agreed. I mean, I'm thrilled Ovi plays for a team who would do that for him. I'm rooting like hell for him to get 895 goals. It would almost be as historic as that one time Ottawa made the playoffs.
On the other hand, damn they are going to be bad for a long time. They already have a terrible farm system. I thought they were finally starting to make steps at the deadline by trading away Orlov and Hathaway, and getting Sandin.
If I were GM MacLellan, I'd try to go for a half-Calgary and trade for some older vets with 1-2 years left on their deals. Shake up the room and try to make the playoffs. At this stage, they can't really trade Ovechkin or Wilson or Backstrom or Kuznetsov or Carlson for fair value because of the flat cap. If they had started acting on those moves earlier they could have had some more long-term pieces in place.
This offseason just feels like doubling down with more expensive contracts on a roster that was already bad in 22'-23'. Now, they don't even have cap space to take on a cap dump for draft picks. They set themselves up for this also by only having 1 defenseman signed (Carlson) as they approached the end of last season.
Also not sure where to post this but Puckdoku has the Canes in today. I got a 56 uniqueness which is by far the best I have ever done and will ever do.
