They aren't going anywhere until they fix their D. Noah Roberts has REALLY surprised me. Lucas Moore has done the opposite. Chen is not an OHL defenceman.
Vanacker will be either their best or second best player once he gets going. That is a HUGE loss.
Jiricek is a 1st round draft pick. Another really important player.
You take a top line player and top pair dman off of any team and it will affect them greatly.
One the plus side Egorov is slowly making a believer out of me. They have a very solid tandem.
I don't think they'll be losing to crap teams when they get those players back but you can't say adding them will make them better than the Steelheads, Knights or Gens. Which was what the plan was when they sold off the past two years.
Bulldogs champ teams in the past started the season off meh and had their bad moments before they got in new players but this team is getting out classed. They can't do the basics like get the pucks out, they lose every battle and their pretty undisplined. There's also not a ton going to be available at the deadline so the core of this group is what we have.
I think it's on the coaching / management as it stands. Plenty of these issues were very prevalent in the playoffs and they haven't been addressed at all and all the other contenders are getting much more active in the trade market.
If they can add X and Hamura they have a chance at winning but as it stands I don't see it unless there's some big trades.