Many do. Many.
I've already listed that we re-signed Kesler (6-year contract) in 16-17 and Eaves (3-year contract) in 17-18. Kesler and Eaves were affected by healthy as we partially fell off in 17-18, but still made the playoffs. In 18-19, everything came off when Perry's talent fell off. Murray thought Eaves and Kesler could return fully healthy in 18-19 as well. 19-20 we were talentless with a lot of unproven youth. By this time, GM Murray has given the Samueli's the heads up on the Ducks today and for the future as the team bought out Perry for the 19-20 season. We can't replace Kesler, Eaves, and Perry in a hurry. It's going to be a long process and we're in near the end of the infancy stage of the turnaround.
I was prepared for the Ducks to be a low scoring team and if they were to win, then it would have be based upon its defense to step up and steal games. Shattenkirk is a failure and injuries have hit us again. If everyone isn't begging for instant gratification, then why are there so many complaints about this team today? Are we oblivious that we are lacking talent and are waiting for talent to develop as the most viable way to improve? We are cap strapped for this season going into the season after the TDL by accruing Backes' salary. The Samueli's knew this. Of course, there were some chances to add a player to help improve the team in D Faulk in 2019-20 off-season and C PLD early 2021 season, but still far away a fringe playoff team if played at their best. Those chances didn't happen. The only significant addition we had was D Shattenkirk, but we had to trade off D Gudz to make room for such a salary.
Anyhow, if all those quotes don't reflect instant gratification when all we did between last year and this year was add more salary as well as swapped defensemen in Gudz for Shatty. The only thing to bank on improvement would be effort and strategy. Our PP strategy sucks, but our PK has vastly improved. The 200-ft game relies a lot on effort. With it, then we've shown we can compete even when we lose. Without out, the game is meh and feel pity on Gibby or whoever our netminder is for those games. It's simply effort between last year and this year because we do lack high end talent.
Shatty gamble has failed so far and the added salary netted us Perrault, who looks better than expected with motivation and ahead of Tracey's development. Zegras and Drysdale will be joining the NHL club far sooner than our previous prospects (save Lundestrom), but are still very young to be deemed an NHL stalwarts. And yet, their talent do bump up the talent quality at the NHL club level. And there will be a lot more cap space in 2021-22 off-season. It was always about the future. In the PLD sweepstakes, we offered a futures package to Columbus without Zegras and Drysdale. Thus, re-emphasizing it's all about the future.
