It feels extra hard to parse for me because we don't all agree on what makes us competitive. Like extending Jordan Eberle types of players is also consistent with "riding it out" for me. You can do that while slowly building the prospect pool. And that seems to be the way most lower end teams operate, they don't stop spending to the cap. I'll need to see something big, the likes of which Francis has never done, here or in Carolina, to believe that we've deviated from that approach.
Yeah, I'm very curious as to what Francis does.
Firing Hakstol seems to show, IMO, that there's pressure on him to produce and win right now.
Like you've said, we have different oppinions on what exactly should be done.
Though, like I've stated many times I want him to take a direction and go for that.
And if that direction is win now and go big I'm very curious to see if he can actually make that happen or not.
Trading for those players(Marner was mentioned here before) is a whole different level(of negotiating) compared to trading a cash strapped team two mid round picks and cap relief for Oliver Bjorkstrand or anything he's done so far in his GM career.
That Eberle extension was terrible. Not the way you build a winning team by overpaying declining one dimensinal wingers to 2 year deals like that.
Almost all of Francis' UFA contracts that he has negotiated for this club have aged extremely poorly. Gru, Bura, Eberle, Oleksiak, Driedger, Dumoulin, Schwartz.
His drafting is very solid and his negotiating with his RFAs has been outstanding since his Canes days, but someone has to keep him out of the UFA market, because he has a serious blind-spot in that area.
He is very willing to piss away cap overpaying middling UFA guys, but will trade or let solid RFAs walk if they want fair market deals. He really has to adjust his perception of what is adequate and what isn't in both of those areas.
I think that Eberle extension was him looking at the free agent class and realizing that unless he has to rebuild(retool next season(which I don't think he has) he needs production and re-signing Eberle at that number felt probably better than trying to sign a similar winger in free agency.
His signings haven't been that great(besides the Larsson one) and he's way better at extending players(Dunn,McCann) like you've said. But that's also not surprising given the nature of free agency in the NHL.
Free agency is basically paying those guys in their late 20's and early 30's for their past production and hoping they can give you anything close to that for at least half of the duration of that contract you sign them to.
That's why I'm not a fan of free agency and going big during it.
Overall we're basically experiencing the same thing with Francis the Hurricanes did as he's petty good at laying the ground but a bit too conservative to take the next step.
So let's see if he can take that step or else he could be gone a year from now.