The incredible thing about these sort of plans being posted is that we literally had this exact thing happen two years ago.
Team had some success in the 19-20 season and in the bubble, and the players were feeling good. Then came the cap-imposed 'shocking rebuild' and things just went totally toxic for the next season and a half until Benning/Green were fired. Multiple core players - Pettersson, Miller, Horvat - were obviously miserable and their play cratered. Multiple quality veterans (Edler, Schmidt) wanted out. Basically everything turned into a massive clusterf***.
And apparently people watched that happen, absorbed none of it, and at the first sign of the teams showing life again and the players looking happy and motivated are like 'Let's blow it up again and make no effort to compete for multiple years and I'm sure that won't affect Hughes/Pettersson/Demko at all!'
Boggles the mind. Total video game stuff with no concept of the fact that you're deaing with human beings here.
What a load of crap. "We literally had the exact thing happen two years ago". Not even remotely similar and context matters. There was no plan whatsoever, no benefit to the lack of moves they made, and a huge side dish of unprofessionalism in how they treated the players they forced out.
What angers and burns out players and fans is spinning your wheels going nowhere, or regressing when you're supposed to be competing, or staring down the barrel of a long rebuild. Benning told everyone a year prior that they're trying to win now and then made the team regress by being an incompetent f*** immediately after they responded with a good season. That's regressing when you're supposed to be competing.
It wasn't an intentional step back and everyone knew it. It wasn't planned and everyone knew it. There was no benefit to the lack of action they took, they just spent all summer chasing OEL and since they only had one brain cell to use at a time they didn't even try to do anything else.
The context of no benefit matters. We didn't gain anything from it. We didn't eject useless vets. We didn't get a boatload of futures coming to help the team. There was no help on the horizon. It was just nothing. If we had converted all those guys into futures, the old overpaid shitty guys were gone, and each year there was a Hoglander or Podkolzin arriving in camp, that is wildly different than walking into camp and seeing Eriksson, Myers and Beagle in front of Tanev and Toffoli's empty lockers. Just look at the optimism that having Podkolzin and Kuzmenko arriving has provided the team, let alone how they felt when Pettersson or Hughes joined.
The context of how guys were treated and the lack of messaging to the team matters. Everyone knew Benning ghosted the guys and everyone felt like Tanev and Toffoli were treated like crap. Guys watched the good players leave and the crap players stay. Horvat watched Toffoli walk and then had Eriksson and Virtanen on his wing. Hughes watched Tanev walk while Myers flailed around all season. The messaging was still compete immediately. It made no sense.
The context of new management also matters. When an entire front office is fired and new management comes in they get to pick the direction of the team. There is an ocean of difference in context between chaotic incompetence, poor treatment, no communication and no messaging of a plan from a 6+ year mgmt group that seemingly flip flopped on team direction vs an entirely new front office that gets to choose their direction.
The context of a new management providing a plan would matter. If they framed the conversation on building around Pettersson/Hughes/Demko so that the team will have a long window of contention, which means they can't overcommit to UFA's right now, that's providing a plan and vision as opposed to chaotic no plan mismanagement.
And when your futures start developing and you pull the trigger on spending the cap space after the 1-2 year dip, that's a huge lift to the room that wipes out a lot of bad feeling. Just look at Buffalo and Detroit's positivity - they know they aren't world beaters but they also know what the plan is and they know that they're on the upswing, and they are enthusiastic and positive about their teams. That's wildly different than Arizona or Chicago where they know they're getting worse and won't be good for a half decade or where the Flyers will be in a few months when they're supposed to be competitive and they're at the bottom of the standings.
And lastly, you still constantly making the assumption that there's an opportunity cost as if we're in a contention window and we're absolutely not. Even if we make the playoffs this year, morale on this team will be worse staying with this course if we miss the playoffs the following two years versus selling the big money UFA guys and building upwards. And missing the playoffs two out of the next three years is very possible with this teams current incarnation barring some home runs.
It's just lazy nonsense. I can do it too:
Retaining Miller and Boeser is just like Gillis retaining the Sedins when he arrived!
Mikheyev is like adding Samuelsson!
The Kuzmenko steal is like convincing Hamhuis to take way below market to come home!
Lazar is like Lapierre!
Dermott is like Aaron Rome or something!
This is just like Gillis! Cup in 3 years!
See how stupid this is?
The irony of you posting this after posting the above is so rich. "Stockpiling futures and selling UFA players is exactly like what Benning did after the bubble!!!"
