We have a dead cap of 11 million which will alleviate around the time many are worrying for a drop off. Not to mention we have traded none of our recent first round picks, acquired other first round drafted players, and have acquired multiple first, 2nd, and 3rd round picks.
All of these first rounders still have some shine to them and have not arrived:
Svechov, L'Heureux, Kemell, Wood, Molendyk, Surin
This ignores last years 2nd rounders and recent acquisition of Gibson.
It ignores some of the players we acquired as well as Askarov.
We also have two firsts, two seconds, and two (or is it three) thirds in 2025.
....
I said with Hynes: He was a bad coach who couldn't coach a very talented roster. He had goo talent and couldn't figure it out. He was a nightmare. He stunted development and forced Poile to take a roster ready to compete and continue to try and retool it in a different direction. It just didn't work.
Trotz has taken that roster and added to it, with a few well placed scalpel excisions (still disagree with Duchenne but not after this offseason's moves). He is snapping up some of the older but still productive veterans that are being forgotten, while keeping young talent.
We are set up to get into the playoffs and have a recipe to fix two of the major problems: PP and goal scoring. We aren't quite there on defense, but he tried.
We still have the players, draft capital to be a force later.
We have dead money coming off the books with a rising cap and nothing egregious.
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And bottom line, this team will be fun again. I will pay to watch stars play. I'm getting a chance to watch Stamkos? Sign me up. I don't care that he is 34. I don't care that he may be overpaid by 1-2 million (he isn't for this year, he had 41 goals last year). I want to watch a team compete, score, and have fun.
