- Jan 18, 2022
- 8,128
- 12,478
Nailed it. I've posted a medium-length comment on here earlier about the feeling of a doomed or stuck rebuild but it was immediately dismissed by the handful of power-users here who insist everything is fine and rebuilds are meant to take 7-10 years. Regardless of whether that's true or not (I hope it isn't), the feeling today is the Suzuki-Caufield core did not get improved upon (they remain the two best players in the organization) and we are therefore not just soft as hell but underskilled and undersized too.I think the being stuck in between is taking a toll. We've decided to try and eek out as many points as possible with the little talent we do have. The problem is the product is still very inferior. Meanwhile we see a parade of talent pass us by going to teams who already have more talent than we do.
The "Oh it's okay it's a deep draft " doesn't cut it and it feels like we have blown our opportunity to rebuild properly.
Kent Hughes and Jeff Gorton have so far taken a lukewarm path. Nobody likes lukewarm. We are neither tanking nor building a team. Hughes could’ve acquired help to replace Dach+Newhook -- any serious team would seek to replace two top6 players taken out if they intended to accomplish anything that season -- he could've called up some scoring talent like Roy on a temporary basis and inject some impetus while we struggled… nope. He’s still rolling with three goalies ffs!
He might end up revealing himself to be more conservative and afraid than his predecessor. And the shrimpuff roster he's assembled and drafted... which ones of of Slafkovsky, Mesar, Hutson, Beck, Reinbacher seem like the "playoff tough" type and are built like a playoff tough type?