I'm just about as excited as I always am at this point in the off-season. I think that the terrible start to last season sucked the wind out of the sails a little bit and made it seem like there were no positives, or no hope for the future.
What I am seeing is three good young options in goal for once. Bob needs to show that he can stay healthy, obviously, but he's not completely hopeless out there. But if he goes down again, we have two very good options ready to play immediately - Korpisalo looked as solid and poised as any goalie we've had, while Forsberg went on lockdown when the Monsters needed him most. I see three starting quality goalies as soon as this year if they 1) stay healthy (Bob) 2) stay on track (Korpi) 3) continue to improve (Fosberg). This may be a little optimistic, but it's solid depth at an important position, with insurance if 2 of them fail.
CBJ defense has never looked this good on paper, with young, improving, high profile players. This point last year most of us were thinking that Murray was incapable of playing half a season. Now that we have forgotten that, we've moved to thinking Johnson doesn't belong in the NHL. Two years ago Jack was possibly our best player in the playoff series and now we are disappointed that he's probably our #5.
At forward, it's a solid but unexciting group with a hole at the top in the middle. I'm probably more excited to see Bjorkstrand play than most, but I love the makeup of our top 9 wings.
I'm not all that worried about the presence of 4-5 rookies this year. These are guys that room is being made for because they have performed extremely well since being drafted.
I think the negativity is being beaten into our heads due to 1) the sense of not being able to overcome a terrible start, which made last season feel way too long and 2) lack of free agent signings makes it seem like next season will be a continuation of that and 3) 16 seasons without results.
I can't really remember an offseason like this. We are standing pat and going forward with a young, successful group of players that should bring a bit of swagger into camp - while cutting loose a couple of underperforming players that had been part of the core culture of the team for many years. It's been a boring offseason, sure, and we didn't draft who we all thought we would... but an injection of hungry young players is enough for me to be excited for training camp. Any sense of complacency with any of the veterans should be completely gone.
Okay, that's not the drool emoji, but it conveys my feeling at least slightly. 
