I really don't get this mentality at this point, and sorry I don't mean to single you out lol. But this team is already incredibly young and still has a few strong prospects coming up. Of course you can always use good prospects but at a certain point, which we are definitely at IMO, you have to start adding to that core with more veterans. And Fiala isn't even that old.
I just think this is how you get in a place where you're in a constant rebuild. I see so many posts about not wanting to commit to a player that's like 27-28, so we should sell them off get even younger. Then we suck the next yaear because those young guys aren't McDavid, and we end up looking to sell off the next 27-28 year old, and the cycle continues.
Of course you still have to be smart and not just hand out 8 year deals with massive cap hits to everyone, but there's a middle ground where we can commit to good players on reasonable terms to help insulate the young core we have.
I agree that in order to take the next step, the Devils need to change the balance of the veterans to young players in the lineup, however in the salary cap era, you can't reasonably build your core by adding sexy names (that aren't game changers, I'm talking Tavares/Panarin level). A lot of people here suggest making a splash with a big signing, however:
a) You need to commit a very significant portion of the salary cap to the given player, you add Meier/Fiala today and tomorrow you run out of cap space,
b) You need to potentially commit an asset that is very efficient in terms of relation between cap hit and quality,
c) And even if we are talking about 26 y. o. players, there's a very significant risk that they played their best hockey already. Not saying that they will be useless in a year or two but if we analyze the players that have been given huge 50M+ contracts, these contract were worse valuewise than their previous contracts and some of them have became straight up atrocious.
Of course the risk of 1st round pick busting altogether counterbalances points above to a degree but the point remains that the core has to be built via drafting (I think that we have partially done that so the future may not be that bleak). On top of that, smart UFA signings/bargain trades a'la Reinhart/K. Rooney/B. Boyle/J. Carter/Bennett, should round out the team and push Boqvists, Kuokkanens and Ty Smiths out of the lineup (unless they improve).
Also, the argument of being stuck in the permanent rebuild goes both ways. Sure, if New Jersey keeps giving roster spots to the fringe NHL players mentioned above, we'll never do well, however several failed rebuilds have failed (or been slowed down) because there have been attempts to accelerate them (vide Buffalo signing Okposo and Skinner, Edmonton giving up Barzal pick for Reinhart, Arizona trading a very high pick for Stepan and Raanta etc.).
