At the core, I agree with what you're saying. Big issue here unfortunately appears to be a lack of understanding of what this team is. This is deeply concerning to me and should be to a lot of fans and ownership. LL, by all accounts appears to want everyone back. If it weren't for Nelson, he'd be back. Palms is obviously back. Others are back. With the cap going up, assuming new contracts for all RFA, we are right at the cap or close to it. Was that really the plan? It certainly appears that way. That's deeply concerning.Listen, my personal preference would've been to make another deal or two and gather more assets. But, I'm also not as distraught as a lot of posters here. Probably because I'm not a fan of a tear down rebuild and would rather try to retool on the fly and remain competitive. Mostly because I think that's the way teams have to build anymore in a salary cap/UFA league, and especially for a non-Original 6/Sunbelt/tax haven franchise like the Isles. If we're a lottery team for a few years we get back that no-trade list stink that's hard to then lose. Do I think Lou should stay on as GM? No, I've thought for the past couple of years that the league has passed him by. And I'm holding out some hope that we might get a surprise after the season is over.
But in the meantime, from a purely asset management perspective, at this point it's now two straight TDLs where we haven't traded away picks. It looks like we didn't lose any assets for nothing. Nelson generated a good return (pretty high end prospect and a 1st round pick in what is supposed to be a deep draft). Palmieri apparently is re-signing - hopefully for no more than 2 years and a reasonable number, but we'll see. Yeah, if you view it from the tear-it-down perspective it sucks that he wasn't dealt. But in a retool you're keeping a guy who is a good teammate for young players coming up, and with 20 goals at this point he's tied with a bunch of players for 65th in goals in the league (in a 32 team league that's not bad). When the Isles made their playoff run in 1975, Parise and Drouin were the most important forwards. They weren't around for the Cups, but they paved the way and taught Gillies, Nystrom, etc.. [Palmieri even kind of looks like Parise and Drouin.]
Teams were inquiring about JGP and Lee? Sure, maybe. But if they were, were they looking for retention this year and next? 25-50% maybe? That's a lot of cap space - again no prob if you're in the tear down group, but not so hot if you want to retool and compete. So, they're still on the roster and worst case can contribute next year and, again, provide leadership/experience for young players. If the Isles find themselves in the same position a year from now, hopefully they trade them at that time and get assets back for them.
The Isles apparently did not offer Nelson a 5 or 6 year contract at $7-8M per year. I view that as a good thing. If the mindset of the Mayfield/Engvall summer applied, Nelson would've been offered that kind of contract. They didn't trade picks. I fully expected Nelson to either be re-signed or to be traded for a player who could contribute right now, to a playoff run. The fact that Nelson was dealt for pure futures tells me something different may be going on. Maybe, just maybe, there is some kind of leash on Lou, and maybe we get an announcement after the season ends. We'll see. But in the meantime, at worst there was not active damage done to the team (trading away futures or taking on expensive new contracts). They got good value for their best asset, and retained the other ones and can still flip them in the future. They have all their picks this summer, and two 1st round picks next year. You can bemoan lost opportunities, but if they keep their picks and don't lose guys for nothing by letting them walk away, so long as they draft well the pipeline should improve.
Just last offseason, we were talking about JGP having negative value. Ditto Lee. We had a chance to flip the script and unload them with centers being at a premium and Lee having a rebirth of sorts. In a lost year, we squandered an opportunity to do so. Trading these two would still put us in a position to retool instead of a rebuild. We still have Barzal, Horvat, and Sorokin. In a sellers market, we could've collected the assets and used them in trades to bring in impact players. But instead you have this insane loyalty to the individual players instead of realizing there's a problem with the team and roster construction.
LL has done a lot of good. Much like a player admiring a home run in baseball, Lou too is admiring his roster. Except it's not a home run. It's a pop up and Lou is rounding the bases like it's a home run.
Lou is not accountable to anyone. Not the fans. Not the ownership.
And do we seriously think Nelson will sign a 3 year contract this summer? Seems to me that the Isles offered Nelson a contract below what the market will provide on 7/1, and Nelson turned it down. If the Isles offered a 5 or 6 year contract and he turned it down, then we could talk about saving.
