is core is finished. The players are not finished, any collection of these players will flourish elsewhere, but as constructed currently this roster is no longer competitive.
Zibanejad is a talent center. This is not the team for him
Trouba is an average #4-5 dman. He is not worth $8M and clearly there is a rift with him and management. Gorton is an idiot for giving him an NTC and giving him the leverage to control his destiny. That's shit GMing when Trouba was the one who could have been making the concessions because he needed to be here for personal reasons.
Kreider is an amazing piece that will always put up a 50-60 point performance every year and will bring more than just those points, but a major issue on this team is the kreider-zib combination. While I admit that Drury has completely f***ED himself with no real RW1, there's also the point to be made that clearly NOBODY can play RW with Kreider and Zib.... That's a line construction problem, and yet somehow these guys can't play with anyone else. That's a major problem with this roster and a significant reason why RW1 has been a God damned carousel for the last 5 years
Millers development has stunted here. Either get him some better coaching or move him, this is his ceiling on this team
We better better hope that panarin wants to stick around on a shorter term deal because if he walks we're going to suck so bad. Him, laf, trocheck are the key remaining pieces here
This team needs something NEW, not something BETTER.