Holy shit is there a lot of whining going on in this thread...this team was meant to be awful, and it is. This is the painful part of the rebuild where the team has bottomed out. As more talent comes in every year, they will get better. Right now, it's all about the young guys getting some experience and developing their game, which is why Will Smith is here and why it's dumb to send him anywhere else. Celebrini coming back will give us another reason to watch even though the team will still be...wait for it, terrible!
Regarding this team, even when healthy, everyone is playing a line/pair above where they should be. Eklund-Celebrini-Toffoli, Granlund-Smith-Zetterlund, Goodrow-Wennberg-Sturm is a solid bottom-9, but they have 0 top line forwards. Walman-Ceci and Ferraro-Thompson is fine as a bottom-4, but they have zero top pairing defensemen. Eventually, Celebrini and hopefully other top draft picks (+ trades/FA signings) will fill those roles, but for now, that is why the team is very bad. And still, their underlying stats are not bottom-3 in the cap era bad like last year when they were rolling out a bunch of guys who aren't even NHL level players like Addison, Burroughs, Okhotiuk, Zadina, Barabanov, Hoffman, Carpenter, and Labanc.
We gotta stay patient...this is the way.
Regarding this team, even when healthy, everyone is playing a line/pair above where they should be. Eklund-Celebrini-Toffoli, Granlund-Smith-Zetterlund, Goodrow-Wennberg-Sturm is a solid bottom-9, but they have 0 top line forwards. Walman-Ceci and Ferraro-Thompson is fine as a bottom-4, but they have zero top pairing defensemen. Eventually, Celebrini and hopefully other top draft picks (+ trades/FA signings) will fill those roles, but for now, that is why the team is very bad. And still, their underlying stats are not bottom-3 in the cap era bad like last year when they were rolling out a bunch of guys who aren't even NHL level players like Addison, Burroughs, Okhotiuk, Zadina, Barabanov, Hoffman, Carpenter, and Labanc.
We gotta stay patient...this is the way.