JR ruined the team this off season, but I still have some hope it can be salvaged. But it will require firing the head coach, overhauling the third line, and finding a LW to play with Geno.
Well, they also will likely need a goalie. That is a long list of mistakes to address, so you might be right. But even if they fix half of the issues, we could at least be a better team.
It’ll be interesting to see if Hextall does anything. There are some obvious changes that have to be made that do not require watching this team for months. I think you have a couple of decent assets they you could deal in McCann and Dumo.
It’s a tall task for Hextall, that’s for sure. JR is a piece of garbage.
Ruined the team this off-season??? How do you figure that. Added Kapanen at RW and shipped out Hornqvist at RW so that is a big improvement while also with an eye to the future being 9 years younger and 10 times faster.
On defense getting rid of our worst defensman in JJ and Schultz and bring in Matheson and Ceci and that is a big improvement with those guys also.
So if your biggest gripe is his choices of two players making the minimum with Jankowski and Rodriguez then what the heck are you talking about? Hornqvist needed to go! You don't keep $5.3 million mid 30's winger that is not playing in your top 6. Matheson only cost $3 million this season in real money and Rutherford had to cut real money under $75 million. So while you are switching one bad contract for another all take my chances on the 26 year old defensman with good skill and skating pulling a Niskanen/Schultz over a winger we already knew was not going to be in our top 6 and was on the worst line during our playoffs last season.
We have had plenty of offensive production from our 3rd line and we have the forwards to make a great top 6 if we need to switch it up. We have the defensman to get the job done thanks to Rutherford adding Pettersson, Marino, POJ, Matheson, and Ceci. The team just needs to get a veteran netminder and they never cost much in trades even the good ones. We can survive with a 4th line of whoever works out best of Rodriguez, Sceviour, ZAR/McCann, Jankowski, O'Connor, and Lafferty. Give me that goaltender and I can live with the rest. Not going to have a perfect team with the self imposed real money cap.