Mike Sullivan is the captain of the Titanic, and the front office is content with rearranging the deck chairs as the iceberg approaches.
That's a good reference. Sullivan is the Captain saying, "Well, just close the hatches. This ship can't sink," as he looks out from the bow and sees it dipping into the ocean.
"Capt Sullivan, your ship went down and you lost over 2,000 people...what...what do you have to say for yourself?"
"Well, I thought we sailed hard. There are a lot of good icebergs out there, and sometimes it is thought to sail across the Atlantic. We didn't get to our game. When you hit an iceberg, you have to keep the ship from sinking, and we didn't do that."
"um...okay, what about Associate Captain Reirden or First Mate Velluci? Certainly, they will be shown the door for their role in this?"
"I'LL KILL YOU!!!!" *Sullivan dives over the table and lunges at the reporter."
I agree that we definitely should be careful not to sign too many players for too much money moving forward. That said, we need one top-six forward. We need help for the power play. Ideally, you can get one guy to help both areas. And yes, we should be trying to avoid veterans.
But the way I look at the roster, we will be able to get younger if we replace the likes of Smith and Eller with the likes of Poulin and Yager (just hypothetical examples). We can also get younger by not re-signing Nedeljkovic, promote Blomqvist and find a journeyman No. 3 man to play in the AHL. OR trade Jarry and re-sign Ned. Either way works. I don't think we are going to be able to trade Graves and Rakell this off-season, and we should desperately avoid adding "sweeteners" to try to remove players from the roster. That is not how to retool this roster. That is how to continue to go down the path we were going down before Dubas arrived and before the Guentzel trade.
But, for the right fit, we should be buyers. One guy. That is all. But a key guy, a potential core guy. An impact guy. Someone who can add what is missing to both Malkin's line and the first PP unit. Marner has been discussed already, but I think he will stay in Toronto. I don't think he wants to go anywhere, and I don't think they want to trade him for pennies on the dollar.
Stamkos is too old for what we would ideally like, but there is no denying how much of an improvement the PP would be if we had a shooter on the left side. Sam Reinhart is going to cost a ton of money, and Florida will move players out to keep him. But he is another guy who checks a lot of boxes. Guentzel, of course, will likely be an option, albeit not a perfect one imo.
We should target one key forward, preferably a right-winger for the Malkin-Bunting combination and preferably a guy who can help turn our power play around. Reirden being gone helps, but we need more help than that.
I agree with everything. I've said in the past, "If you want to get younger...get younger." It's not hard. It starts with exactly what you suggested: you remove older players and replace them with younger players. With the current cap situation, that is incredibly easy for us to do. You could easily site Nieto, Acciari, and Eller and play Pono, Poulin, and Yager. Granted, I think Eller is fine, but I'm just making the point.
I think there needs to be some realization that the strategy of bringing in those three and building the two defense-only lines not only didn't work as intended, but it flat-out doesn't work in hockey anymore. Every single playoff team right now can roll four lines. Granted, a lot of them lean on a solid top 9, but none of the teams' 4th lines are liabilities like we just iced this year. Not one has to "hide" or "shelter" anyone.
If you didn't want major roster turnovers, that's fine, but you can still recreate the entire roster a bit:
XXXX-Sid-Rust
Bunting-Geno-Rakell
DOC-XXXX-Puust/Pono/Koivunen/etc
Nieto-Eller-Acciari
If you resign RFAs and promote Blomy, you have about $14mil to play with in space. You can 100% get a Debrusk or Wennberg or Roslovich to bolster the top 9 while maintaining a hell of a defensive 4th line.
I think Dubas needs to be aggressively creative on the trade front. That needs to come with a couple of core ideals:
1. Outside of Sid, Geno, and Letang (and apparently Rust) - there is zero loyalty here. Time to f***ing remake the roster.
2. We need goaltending that is "good enough". We need the Georgiev or Kreumper level goaltending. Jarry isn't Bobs, Shesterkin, Swayman, etc. We don't have that in Jarry now, nor is that available in trade or FA. Blomqvist and Murashov aren't there yet as far as we know. But it's tough to watch $5.75mil go to a goalie that isn't winning you undeserved games, especially when you are pretty much forced to ride your backup to end the season. Is Neds a starter? Meh, probably not. But between him and Blomqvist, can you get "good enough" goaltending on any given night? I think so.
3. 3 offensive lines, 1 defensive line. Seek players with shooting ability, even if they are one-dimensional. We need another Kessel, not another Smith/Rakell/Rust. If that means bringing Jake back, fine.
I would give my blessing to Dubas to go make that roster regardless of Sullivan's feelings. If he doesn't use them how intended, adios. But truthfully, that needs to happen anyway. Standard disclaimer being - I don't know how effective any of this really will be if Sullivan is behind the bench next year.