Speculation: Caps Roster General Discussion (Coaching/FAs/Cap/Lines/etc) | 2024-25 Summer Edition

[kicksavedave]

If the NHL was smart they would promote the players better and build intriguing story lines leading up to the games, versus a gimmicky 15 minute shotgun start where nobody can watch all the games.

Not to defend the NHL or anything, but did you catch the promo they ran with younger players like Bedard, Jack Hughes, McDavid, Matthews, Eichel and others acting like spoiled GenZ/Millennials, followed by Crosby complaining about "Kids these days". I liked it, and the 80's new wave tune Ca Plane Pour Moi was a nice touch.

The Moment Lab on Instagram: "Kids These Days 🏒 The NHL has kicked off a new ad campaign featuring some of its top young players, playfully tackling stereotypes about Gen Z in the workplace. 🌟 Part of the league’s “The Next Golden Era is Now” camp

136 likes, 0 comments - themomentlab on October 12, 2024: "Kids These Days 🏒 The NHL has kicked off a new ad campaign featuring some of its top young players, playfully tackling stereotypes about Gen Z in the workplace. 🌟 Part of the league’s “The Next Golden Era is Now” campaign, the ad...

www.instagram.com

 

[qc14]

I mean getting Bedard seems worth it

They would've still gotten Bedard with him there and would've also had a great 2c to play behind him (or an extra asset to trade at the deadline). Going full teardown rebuild is never worth it. It's much easier to still be bad with good players than to obtain good players after being bad. Bedard is good enough that Chicago could've been a legit playoff contender with him this year. Instead they're running Pat Maroon and Nick Foligno on their PP units and are probably going to waste Bedard's first four or five years in the league

 

[Calicaps]

….because of their mindset lol…Billionaires don’t think like peasants.

no, research suggests they think like sociopaths.

 

[Kazer]

They would've still gotten Bedard with him there and would've also had a great 2c to play behind him (or an extra asset to trade at the deadline). Going full teardown rebuild is never worth it. It's much easier to still be bad with good players than to obtain good players after being bad. Bedard is good enough that Chicago could've been a legit playoff contender with him this year. Instead they're running Pat Maroon and Nick Foligno on their PP units and are probably going to waste Bedard's first four or five years in the league

I'm not going to argue that jettisoning Strome for nothing was a good move (it was not), but I don't think Strome makes Chicago a playoff contender.

Chicago understands where they're at. Bedard is great, but most of their young talent isn't NHL ready quite yet. They are clearly focused on the next few seasons from now when guys like Nazar, Levshunov, Moore, and Korchinski (among others) are fully developed.

Further, they have a ton of cap flexibility (14 players are UFA the next two offseasons for them).

 

[qc14]

I'm not going to argue that jettisoning Strome for nothing was a good move (it was not), but I don't think Strome makes Chicago a playoff contender.

Chicago understands where they're at. Bedard is great, but most of their young talent isn't NHL ready quite yet. They are clearly focused on the next few seasons from now when guys like Nazar, Levshunov, Moore, and Korchinski (among others) are fully developed.

Further, they have a ton of cap flexibility (14 players are UFA the next two offseasons for them).

Where they're at is still not having enough good players to be competitive. They traded/gave away three very good players in Strome/DeBrincat/McCabe (and maybe a fourth in Dach) that they didn't need to jettison to be bad. They will be extremely lucky if their group of prospects reach the level of players within that group, and in the meantime they'll have had at least 3 years of purposely being complete garbage.

Tearing everything down to the complete studs and icing an AHL lineup in order to increase your lottery chances for a season by 10% is for suckers and cheap owners and I hate that it's become the "smart" thing to do

 

[Calicaps]

Not to defend the NHL or anything, but did you catch the promo they ran with younger players like Bedard, Jack Hughes, McDavid, Matthews, Eichel and others acting like spoiled GenZ/Millennials, followed by Crosby complaining about "Kids these days". I liked it, and the 80's new wave tune Ca Plane Pour Moi was a nice touch.

The Moment Lab on Instagram: "Kids These Days 🏒 The NHL has kicked off a new ad campaign featuring some of its top young players, playfully tackling stereotypes about Gen Z in the workplace. 🌟 Part of the league’s “The Next Golden Era is Now” camp

136 likes, 0 comments - themomentlab on October 12, 2024: "Kids These Days 🏒 The NHL has kicked off a new ad campaign featuring some of its top young players, playfully tackling stereotypes about Gen Z in the workplace. 🌟 Part of the league’s “The Next Golden Era is Now” campaign, the ad...

www.instagram.com

I thought that was great. But would have liked them to emphasize a bit more diversity.

 

[RedRocking]

I thought that was great. But would have liked them to emphasize a bit more diversity.

Meanwhile, at NHL HQ…

 

[Kazer]

Where they're at is still not having enough good players to be competitive. They traded/gave away three very good players in Strome/DeBrincat/McCabe (and maybe a fourth in Dach) that they didn't need to jettison to be bad. They will be extremely lucky if their group of prospects reach the level of players within that group, and in the meantime they'll have had at least 3 years of purposely being complete garbage.

Tearing everything down to the complete studs and icing an AHL lineup in order to increase your lottery chances for a season by 10% is for suckers and cheap owners and I hate that it's become the "smart" thing to do

Two retorts

1- It's easy to look at them drafting Bedard in 2023 and say 'they could've been a playoff team' when in reality they were sitting 2022, prior to the draft, with virtually no young NHL roster players or prospects outside of Dach, who they were clearly ready to move on from. It's not like they had a core of high-end prospects to build around already. Chicago had the 25th ranked system according to Wheeler in February of 2022. Lukas Reichel, he of 34 points in 102 NHL games, was their top rated prospect at the time.

2 - It's not just tearing it down for a slightly better lottery chance. They got high firsts for both DeBrincat and Dach and a future 1st for McCabe. These are players who will speed up their rebuild.

I agree with you conceptually that it sucks when teams do a full-scale rebuild, but I would argue that Chicago was one of those rare instances where it made sense to do so. If you're going to be bad anyway, why not trade off assets to speed up the rebuild?

 

[qc14]

I agree with you conceptually that it sucks when teams do a full-scale rebuild, but I would argue that Chicago was one of those rare instances where it made sense to do so. If you're going to be bad anyway, why not trade off assets to speed up the rebuild?

I would argue that having 4 top 6 forwards (I forgot about Hagel) between the ages of 23 and 27 would be more helpful in speeding up the rebuild than (and I mean this as no disrespect to these two!) like 5 versions of McMichael and Lapierre from 3 years ago.

You obviously need luck to be a good team but you need to position yourself as well as possible to take advantage of that luck once it hits you. Also -- losing on purpose creates a culture of losing and losers that is incredibly hard to break (see Sabres, Buffalo or Hornets, Charlotte). It's a lot easier to be bad by accident than you think