So who is in favor of a rebuild, and who is in favor of a retool/restructure? Let's have a dichotomous breakdown. Count me in the latter faction.
Retool. I haven't changed that opinion for years, and in fact with a salary cap you need to constantly retool to maximize assets. My main gripe with Lou is that he's loyal to a fault and not proactive enough in making moves to maximize the roster and the value of assets.
BTW, I suppose another option would be to do virtually nothing. I'm not advocating this, but just throwing it out there as a sort of baseline of inactivity
:
Summer 2024: let Martin, Clutterbuck and Aho walk with their $4,075,000 cap hits. Re-sign Reilly and maybe some other minor move. Use draft picks in rounds 1, 2, 4, 5, 6;
Summer 2025: let Nelson, Palmieri and Fasching walk with their $11,775,000 cap hits (if not trading earlier). Use draft picks in all rounds (1-7);
Summer 2026: let Lee and JGP walking with their $12,000,000 cap hits (if not trading earlier). Use draft picks in rounds 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7;
The next summer Casey and Varlamov's contracts expire. At that point, with whatever other moves they make you have a mostly different team.