Best part is, now Dach and Newhook are irrelevant placeholders until Hage comes in.
That's not really what I said. I don't think they're exactly placeholders but neither guy is currently someone that's pivotal to our long term plan, certainly not to the degree that warrants the level of anxiety and concern over what their struggles mean for the State Of The Rebuild. I'm also not calling Hage the saviour, but Demidov, Hage, and the 2025 1st represent significant future value as a group.
Newhook I think was always acquired as a tertiary piece, I used the example of Palat earlier. His role is to be the complementary speed and scorer on a 2nd line or be a luxury 3rd line scorer/flex 3C. Dach at that price is a move I don't think you can ever pass up in a situation like Montreal's in summer 2022. There was nobody on the board with that profile and his ceiling was and is still high even if things don't look the best right now, and the year one + last year pre-injury performance was very encouraging.
Nonetheless, our build doesn't hinge on either player. These were upside bets and attempts to use the rebuild time productively instead of giving that ice time to Max Domi or something. If Dach doesn't pan out that hurts but at the end of the day it's not a Herculean task to find a 2C if we end up in that situation. Like the example I gave with the Devils earlier, I'm sure their fans were very concerned about where Severson, Butcher, Zacha, McLeod, Butcher, and Smith would end up but five years later they're all gone and ultimately didn't really matter to the Devils finding success.
The Habs results progressed year on year and we were all more or less happy to see it. Now they hit the skids, play like crap, show regression, and so on… and it’s only appropriate to re-evaluate the constituting parts of this machine and evaluate the various components and decisions that contributed to the current situation.
It could be that it’s all fine, just a regular ol’ hiccup. It could be this is part and parcel of a rebuild. It could be we need to simply extend the losing period and just need to accept that.
Or it could be the ones in control made some wrong moves somewhere.
Fair enough. Honestly where I land is basically that it's just a hiccup, or at the very least is just a thing that is happening that doesn't have very much relevance to our medium or long term outlook. To use your framing about the parts/components of the machine there's just not all that much about this year that concerns me beyond Dach because most of the parts and components were always going to be replaced. I don't expect Suzuki/Caufield to improve much at this point, and Slafkovsky, Guhle, and Hutson are the primary growth candidates on the roster and all three have been generally good this year with Hutson really shining so far. The important prospects have all played well this year and the pro transition has gone well for Beck who should be important in remaking the bottom six.
Coaching I am starting to have real concerns about but that's also not something that I'm particularly concerned about long term. He's getting close to the NHL coach shelf life at this point and if he doesn't figure things out I don't think the leash will be long next year. That doesn't really concern me in terms of management decision-making as his tenure has still been successful overall for the stage he was hired in. Similarly I think he was a hire they made to take a swing on finding the next Rod Brind'Amour and if it doesn't work we can always hire OldGuy McGrinderCoach when they need to buckle down.
I've said this in a bunch of different ways before but at the end of the day I'm just not really that worried that we look bad with rookie Hutson, Guhle, Matheson, and Savard as our top 4, or with Gallagher/Armia/Evans/Dvorak getting significant top 6 time due to injuries. Primeau has also been horrid this year but again, it's not difficult to sign a generic backup for next year if he doesn't turn things around.
The Dach trade was perfectly fine for a “short-rebuild” IF they were confident his awful D+3 season with CHI was an errant one. The Dach trade is less sensible if the Habs had intended to commit to a “long-rebuild” — there’s no point to gamble on an unproven talent with injury issues if he’s gonna be leaving by the time you’re not even out of the rebuild.
Newhook trade only made sense in a short-rebuild scenario and they flubbed it big time. It happens. No one’s calling for Kent’s bald head just yet, but why can’t we be honest and critical about it?
I think the impasse here is that your assertion those trades only make sense in a short rebuild scenario is a little specious. Dach/Newhook are still just 23 and will be an RFA when their contracts expire. A 5 year rebuild timeline would have both guys at 26 by the end right in line with Caufield and set them up to be the "veterans" supporting the next group of prospects coming in. That timeline seems totally sensible to me.
I don't necessarily hate any of our moves, but I do find it ridiculous when people argue that Newhook and Dach improving doesn't matter because the picks weren't likely to result in NHL players. If that's the case, why trade for any any draft picks outside of the top-10? Hughes is celebrated for many moves where the return was a draft pick outside the top-10
I'm not arguing it doesn't matter because the picks weren't likely to result in NHL players, I think trading for them was a good measured gamble because as much as they've been disappointing this year, the floor on each guy long term is still probably a 3rd line NHLer for picks that have a high chance of being complete busts and both players still had/have upside potential. Newhook I am and was less jazzed about but he also didn't cost as much. Dach I think is a case where you just have to take that swing if the direct cost is Romanov and a couple mid round picks, it looked really good in year one and at the start of last season, we'll see what happens as things move.
Both players improving matters and would be great, it's just not a necessity. Newhook I don't think was ever acquired to be a core guy, and while Dach that was the hope it's not like our entire plan hinges on Dach becoming a great 2C. If he can't figure it out he'll stick around as a winger with size/3C and we'll find a veteran stopgap while we see if Hage (or potentially a 2025 1st, another future trade for a player we don't currently know will become available, etc) can be the guy in that role.
