The whole point of rebuilding is to build a contender and you need elite talent to contend. Its non-negotiable. If the goal is to be the Bergevin-era Habs or the the current Jets, why not just keep Bergevin around?
And just so we're clear, you believe that Tavares, who has been around a point per game player and, in his prime in a much lower scoring league (including his early Leafs tenure) was a top-20 forward in the NHL, who has finished top-10 in scoring in 2012 and 2015 (one point behind Benn for the Art Ross) and spent most of his Islanders tenure playing with scrubs, is comparable to two guys who are sitting on career highs of low 60s?
Your "model" requires ludicrous amounts of luck. You know who wins cups consistently? Teams with multiple guys who are among the best in the league at their position. Not a bunch of really decent guys. We just went through 15-20 years of focusing on depth and trying to exploit weak links on other teams. It. Doesn't. Work. Strong link teambuilding with guys who can dominate is what wins.
I think Suzuki, Dubois and Caufield will improve because they are on an upward swing as young NHLers.
You pay for 8 years going the years three, four, five, six, seven and eight will be productive years.
If it's your take is that, at 22, 23, or 24, that's all you get from these players, it will be really tough for you to have a strong team within Cap constraints, never taking any risks projecting these players.
By those criteria, you would never have signed Jack Hughes to 8 X 8M, for example. Yet, this year, he's 86 points in 70 games, so far.
And, Tavares, yes, I don't hold him in as high esteem as you might, but that's because he hasn't won anything anywhere.
I also believe that, on a team built as I suggest, Suzuki, at least, will become a PPG pivot, and I expect Dubois to become an in your face, 70-point producer or better.
It's not Matthews and Tavares, but you will be able to afford more quality wingers on the team than Marner and Nylander alone.
Talent playing with talent produces.
Suzuki, improving on his career best, to date (61 points) over the last 7 games of the year, on a team so depleted and with zero depth past the first line, for most of the season, and without the same depth as when Caufield was empty, for the moment, lends me to believe he would be over 70 points in a season with two real top-6 lines and, surely, at a PPG pace or better, as he was when Caufield and Dach were on his line earlier in the season (and Monahan was still healthy, although it didn't amount to an amazing 2nd line either - just a positive boost)m with top-9 talented depth and a couple of puck-moving Ds (Matheson on one pairing and someone else on another pairing).
A team built as I suggest, would yield more PPG productions from the players in place, including Dubois as per that model. Just an improved production on the power play would provide the added production to claw upwards towards a PPG.
If, in your mind, we live in a world where hockey players are all written off at 23 and 24, despite progression and remaining upside, because they aren't PPG producers in their ELC, please, give your head a solid shake.
Fantilli, Carlsson, Benson and Smith may never become more than 60-point producers. With Bedard, it's hard to imagine him not doing more, because he drives play so much, but nobody has seen his talent translate to the NHL yet and he is not an automatic McDavid.
Shane Wright, who, for a while, had been the next one, doesn't project as well as he once had, although he could still round the bend and progress at full steam.
The I'm going to pray we suck long enough and hope that for those protracted years, we will hit jackpot along the way, winning the lottery along the way, doing absolutely nothing else to shore up the roster is just not very proactive or remotely brilliant.
We all want elite talent. Hopefully we will get some.
With a 10-point progression, Dubois becomes a top-26 C in this league and, since some wingers are listed as Cs, that's probably closer to top-20.
If Suzuki, as I expect, becomes a PPG C, he's definitely a top-20 or better C in this league.
When Suzuki scores 40 goals, he'll be top-15 in goals scoring for the NHL. If he scores 43, he's top-8.
Odds are greater that Suzuki will score 40+ goals than not, IMHO.
When was the last time we had players with the potential for that on this team?
And please, don't tell me it would be crap.
Of course the Habs aren't filled with players that have produced at those levels for multiple years now. They wouldn't be rebuilding if they were and are currently a young team with players whonhave that potential gradually gaining pace as they progress.
Teams need to asses player potential to plan ahead, nit just sit on their arses and hope forth best. I'd rather hire a proactive GM like Hughes who trusts assessments and takes chances than mar-Bergevin who could not make a follow-through move when it counted to make other moves actually pay off.
Again, moving a FLA pick for Dubois, along with a quality prospect that is or would become redundant does not prevent Montreal from selecting what will hopefully become high end or elite talent with their own earlier draft pick.
Adding and using extra first round and second round draft picks, for better targets with the draft darts, as well as using them to trade for young, talented NHLers with remixing upside, is not some foul brew or recipe to a rebuild, as some with zero actual plan than what a 6th grader can come up with suggest.
Be bad, pick high. Rinse, repeat.
Seriously, everyone with this mindset could be an NHL GM, from what I gather on these boards.
Malarkey.
