i think people just don't watch other teams and prospects honestly. willander is the blandest prospect i've seen get hype in years. like he's a slightly worse version of scott morrow or tanner molendyk. who gets excited about that?
anyways, i have given up trying to convince anyone of that. i stand behind saying the canucks are making a mistake passing up that deal though (especially given it was probably like klimovich or mynio or something as the prospect and not willander or elias nils pettersson). i don't think kotkaniemi is a great player or an answer for the top six issues this team has but his deal is now fantastic and he's at the very least a very good 3c. he'd be a good add for this team
i think people underestimate how hard it is going to get to add players going forward. the days of teams giving away good players like bjorkstrand or marino for basically nothing because of cap issues is over. free agents are going to have their pick of not just teams to play for but contenders to sign with. carolina (37m), winnipeg (37m), the leafs (28m), kings (25m), capitals (23m) and wild (20m) all have 20m+ in cap space this summer and wannabe contenders like utah, detroit and columbus have a ton of space too. vancouver is going to have to offer more than just cap space to retool in free agency like they've been able to the last couple seasons. tocchet and hughes will probably attract players but it's going to get harder to make signings like sherwood, debrusk and lankinen
i think we're about to see a massive shift in how successful teams are run. vegas and the florida teams won't need to change much because they're still the most desirable markets for players because of weather, taxes and winning programs but i think teams are going to have to start being much smarter about player development and "hockey trades". we're going from an environment where players were under pressure to find a place to play to an environment where teams are going to be under pressure just to fill out their roster with quality pros