Cut the homer nonsense out.
No.
If you don't want to be labeled, maybe the cadre of homers on here should stop attacking myself first and have a grown up conversation instead of acting like petulant 13 year olds every time something they don't agree with is suggested.
Instead, it's baby antics, ignore lists, personal attacks, etc. Basically I'm stupid and the insider clique knows better. No thanks.
People aren't homers for enjoying good season
That's not why they are homers. I'm enjoying a good season. I've paid substantial money out of my pocket to go to two games with my whole family well after all these debates have been raging. You can enjoy the season and still find some faults. Well, unless you are a homer, in which case, any suggestion of team blundering sends you into a rage.
and a rebuild that by every objective measure has been successful regardless of the fantasy asset management league you play in your head.
Drury did a good job. You were wrong. Take the L like the man said and move on.
Drury did a good job at the trade deadline, albeit he did pay a higher price than I would have personally. But he acted with restraint in regards to our best assets, yet still got pieces that improve the team in return, and I said I gave him a B.
He did not do a good job in the offseason and the superhero performance of players acquired before he became GM does not change that. He failed on the Buch trade, the Kravstov incident, and in taking any steps to acquire 2 young centers. Although shopping on a budget, his acquisitions/targets of Blais, Hunt, Nemeth and Reaves have proven mediocre at best. Goodrow was a shrewd trade that he then spent a little too much money on for a team that is now going to be cap squeezed. His best move by far, from a win-now perspective at least, was bringing aboard Gallant, though even in that department I'm left wondering when the youth development is coming.
While we are substantially ahead in points of where I would have projected us, I also was saying in the offseason that the playoffs were a given because we have too much talent not to make the playoffs, so it's not as if they have vastly outperformed my expectations, and they wouldn't really reach that level unless they get out of the Eastern Conference come the playoffs, because I never would have said winning a round or two is impossible when you have Shesterkin, Panarin, Fox, and Zibanejad (though I may have said at some point this year when they were getting their asses kicked at 5v5 that 'they'll never win a playoff round like this').
Where's the L to take? I think you might be confusing me with some of the more obvious trolls, but things have played out pretty much exactly like I would have said based on the successes and failures of the past offseason and trade deadline so far. We were a flawed team still in desperate need of young forward talent and seasoning/maturity on defense being carried by our stars and our goalie for the vast majority of the year. That was not a recipe for winning a Cup or Cups in the slightest. Drury rectified the issue FOR NOW by acquiring Copp, Vatrano, and Motte who are all top-9 capable guys including one who can play center, but unfortunately most of those players are likely to depart in the offseason due to cap concerns, as well as Strome, leaving us right back again needing two young centers.
And while these moves put us in the thick of the race as opposed to on the outskirts, I would prefer to assemble a team that is more of a favorite rather than a common playoff team, and to do that, you need a young center or two in here that's eventually better than Copp and Strome. That's how you go from middle of the pack contender to favorite. It's not "fantasy," or impossible to do whatsoever. Just hard.
