I don’t think I agree re: we need a 25-25 Jere Lehtinen more than a 35-35 offensive forward.
People keep forgetting that Kreider, Zibanejad and possibly Panarin are not gonna be around, or at least not gonna resemble themselves, when we are trying to win Cups with prime Lafreniere.
We need another All Star Caliber scoring forward besides him. Hell we really need both Laf and Kakko to be great scorers plus we could use two more centers.
Eh, Kreider isn't that old. All though I don't think we should count on him for scoring anyway. We have Panarin until the 25/26 season and we will probably extend Zibby, hopefully only like a 2-3 year deal. So they could still be around when we are ready, at least for a couple of seasons. I don't think we re-sign Panarin in '26 though.
I'm just happy we didn't risk trading some of our best talent for Eichel. Don't think he's the right fit with us and don't trust his health or his drive to win.
Kakko could still turn out to be more than he looks right now, he's still just 20. And then we have Kravtsov who realistically could become a better offensive player than Kakko. Not sure why many don't seem excited by Kravtsov, but maybe it's because we have Laf and Kakko lol. And don't forget Chytil. I don't see why he couldn't be a 60 point player or so as our 2C eventually. Slight chance he's even better than that, but I think 60 points is a fair expectation for now when he's in his prime. And then in 3 years or so Othmann will be here. Who knows what to expect from him. If he becomes the power forward some think he can, even if he tops out at like 60 points, having both him and Kakko could make it impossible for other teams to deal with us.
So really if Laf, Kravtsov, Kakko, Othmann and Chytil reach their ceilings, that's a very good offensive group. Even if Kakko topped out at like 65-70 and Kravtsov at like 70. It mostly depends on Laf becoming a PPG player though, or there about. And Kakko and Kravtsov I still think have PPG ceilings in their prime. Granted, the chances of ALL those 5 reaching their ceilings isn't great. But as long as like 3 do and the other 2 turn out to be solid, I think we will be fine. Oh, and don't forget Barron. I know he's not expected to be a star or anything, but I have a sneaky feeling he could shock us all. He was at a PPG last season, all be it in a heavily weakened AHL. But he could surprise and become a top 6. And then we have Vierling and Korczac, who are long shots, but both have pretty high ceilings. Korczac is compared to Braden Point a lot and there's good reason for it. Both 3rd round picks and both with high ceilings but low floors, big risk/reward. I mean, that would just be amazing if Korczac came even close to Point. Not something to depend on, but you never know.
We have a good 4 seasons to draft or acquire a future center. And with our glut of young D, who we won't all be able to keep, there's a fair chance we end up trading for that player. Any 2 of Lundqvist, Miller, Jones or Robertson could be traded and we will be fine on D. Still leaves us with Fox, Schneider and Lindgren. Those 3 at least I don't think are going anywhere though. And then which ever 2 of Lundqvist, Miller, Jones, Robertson end up staying, will be good. I still think our best move if we could right now would be to try to trade Lundqvist for a Turcotte, Perfetti Krebs, type of young center. Or trade Jones or Robertson for a bit lesser of similar type of young C. Glass just got moved. And I thought he could be a good acquisition that could still turn out to be a good player. There's other guys out there like Logan Brown, Veleno, Rassmussen, Jost, Kupari, Madden, JAD, Zary, Foudy who, for the right price, could be a sneaky get. I would be ecstatic if we could somehow get Lundell, McMichael or Newhook, but don't think Florida, Caps or Avs respectively, will be moving them for anything. Only reason Kings might move a guy like Turcotte, Vilardi or Kupari is because they have about 7 possible future top 6 centers including Byfield. Jets have Scheifele, PLD and then Perfetti and now Lucius, so maybe theyd move one. Vegas does weird things, lol, so I wouldn't be shocked if they did move Krebs for something. And it would take at least Lundqvist and a 1st round pick to get a lot of these guys. Maybe even something else added. But that's fine given our D depth. Think some of the Kings lesser C prospects could be gotten for maybe Jones or Robertson or even Tuomanen and a pick. Logan Brown or Rasmussen might even be cheap if they are viewed as semi-busts.
Really though, I would like to sign Zibby for 2 extra seasons so his contract runs out when Matthews contract is up, to see if AM goes to free agency and then think we'd stand a good chance at landing him. Or we could sign Zibby to 3 and then Draisatl and Elias Lindholm could be on the market that year. PLD is another guy who we could theoretically go after at some point. He's an RFA after this season, but maybe he will refuse to extend with Jets and we can nab him and then we wouldn't have to re-sign Zibby and/or Strome. And Barkov a UFA after this season, so we could possibly swap Zibby for Barkov in FA. There will be a few guys up for FA when Panarin's contract is up in '26, so we could swap Panarin for a good C signing that year.
Anyway, I think it's way too early to worry about that. Realistically, none of this is a problem until 2026-27 season. And we will finally be free of Ttouba's contract that same year. So we will theoretically have like 20 mil coming off the cap at one time. Granted a lot of that will have to go towards giving our current young players real contracts. But there should still be enough to make a good signing.
