I get what you are saying & see why many would want them to do that & I don't blame you, but im personally good with how they are going about it.
We've just watched 11 months worth of miserable hockey. Trading Young + Wainwright would make it 14 months of miserable hockey then your going into next year significantly worse without those 2 & you have no veterans outside O'Brien & Fischer. You'd be forcing our young guys to play top line minutes even if they aren't ready for it which is dangerous.
So the team could very easily be worse than the one we are watching now. Yes our U18s take steps, but you subtract two very important vets at the top of our lineup, remove almost all leadership from the get go + Fischer likely pushes for WJCs. We'd be in for another season of miserable on ice product.
Maybe it's selfish, but at least this way they remain solid this season & hopefully push for 5th (especially if SAG doesn't turn & use all these picks to buy) maybe win a game or two vs Erie in round 1 (maybe we upset somebody for once?!?!?! lol jokes) then to start next season they have a fairly solid roster that wins more than it loses until the TDL where they can flip Fischer for an '08 or '09 & 6-7 picks (Similar to what Gibson went for), Young assuming he keeps developing will be a top of the line OA Dman.
Sova is a decent comparable I'd say & he fetched 2nd, 4th, 4th & player rights to a Dman.
Mathurin went for a 2nd, 4th, 6th, 13th.
Last yr OA D went for
Mancini (Young is better than) went for 2nd + 3rd
Mayer went for 2nd, 3rd, 5th
Those would be good returns for Young as an OA. Could you get more now? More than likely but not by a substantial amount to make it worth it IMO.
Wainwright I've said before I think we value more than others might. He's likely a 3C on a contender. They'd get a solid return, but if he comes back as an OA & is having a 70+ point season he'd fetch them a solid return.
If we get to next years TDL & Young isn't as good as we hoped & Wainwright hasn't taken much of a step then we'll come back to right now & say they should've dealt them now. 100%, but I have confidence they'll keep developing as they have every yr here. NCAA is a fear but its going to be every year for every year.
As I said it's selfish, but id rather have fun watching a solid hockey team the next 6-7 hockey months while still believing they can go for it in 2026-2027 than be as miserable as we have been the last 11 hockey months until September of 2026.