Jaded-Fan
Registered User
Agree with everything except the last sentence has me a little confused. Which seasoned assets do you mean? I don't see much we can get rid of that would yield anything in return.
On a general note: Does anyone else have a much more grounded opinion of our D prospects since that HF article came out? Morrow is having trouble scoring and has been a healthy scratch on several occasions??? Dumoulin has been a frequent healthy scratch?? Both those guys were supposed to have minor chances at making the team, especially Morrow. Pouliot and Maata are unknown commodities right now, so we're not left with nearly as much to trade as I think people assume. Believe me I'm sure Morrow and Dumoulin can improve and they are young, but according to that HF article the Penguin/Pittsburgh media went WAY overboard and REALLY jumped the gun as far as stating what we had.
I was talking in general rather than specifics. That was the Shero plan, an assembly line of defensive prospects, right?
You move Niskanen, an Orpik, a Martin, either for Neal quality wiiiiiiiiiiingzzzz or in the alternative high draft picks to start the process all over again, and plug in one of our hundreds of first pairing defensive prospects that we were developing.
Except we are seeing the flaw with that plan in the Orpik thread. Even good prospects need seasoning time, during which they will be a significant downgrade. Which is great if you are a young developing team like we had in 2006 and 2007. Not so much now when we need our Orpiks.
So yeah, I get the plan, but in reality it is less than optimal. Something will have to give, either downgrade while these prospects learn their craft, or stick with the vets and start losing them from the bottom up like we did Strait. Right now Shero is splitting the baby like with Despres up and filling a lesser role. But he can not do that forever and still trade something that would be of value, an Orpik or even a Letang, for an all star wing, hoping to replace from within.