You can tank, which results in a losing culture and fan apathy, and still need the planets to align:
1. Need to tank in a year where you have "generational" talent available to choose from (ie McDavid, McKinnon, etc.)
2. Still need to win the lottery to get the first overall. Finishing last only gives you an 18.5% chance at selecting first.
3. If you don't get the #1 pick, you need to hope that there is a Makar available when you do select.
IMO, its just too easy to say "lets tank for (whomever)". I would rather have a competitive team on the ice that is entertaining to watch than to intentionally lose games so I can a lottery ticket with no guarantees. I think the way that BG is going about this is the right way.
I would rather have all of Wallstedt, Lambos, Ohgren and Yurov (as a group) than a single Shane Wright, Slaf or Logan Cooley.
I’m definitely aligned with your thinking regarding how you build a team. Teams need to be built iteratively with younger prospects being slowly introduced onto a roster with winning experience. It is very unfortunate that the Wild ran into the dead cap from the buyouts + the flat cap. This team with Fiala + that additional cap space would have had a real wide window with Kaprizov in his prime.
I am worried that our highly ranked prospect pool is going to follow the previous iteration of hitting on a few upper-level players, but failing to capitalize on their late firsts and 2nd/3rd round picks. It’s great that we’re perceived to have a strong group of defensive and forward prospects, on top of the best goalie prospect in the league. However, I think more than half of our Top 10 prospects are likely to be nothing special.
Faber, Lambos, Addison, ROR, Peart, Hunt — I see 4 of these guys never developing past a #5/6 defenseman. Which ones? No clue, but I don’t think any of them are what could be considered Top-4 locks.
For our offensive prospects, I think we’ve got Rossi and Yurov (if he comes over) that are likely to be impact forwards. Ohgren feels like a low risk medium reward pick. The rest of the group is a crap shoot.
Wallstedt has a lot of hype behind him and he’s performed well beyond his age in the SHL. I think he’s probably the prospect that is likely to be the most impactful to this roster. We’ve got to hope so though because our goaltender depth behind him is terrible (I did like the Gus addition).
I can envision a lot of these guys working out and the team being a strong contender in 25-26. I can also easily envision many of them being nothing and Kaprizov leaves as a UFA. These next 3 years of development are critical and hopefully Judd has picked some good ones.
