I’m not sure if we have accrued every piece we need to be successful, things happen. But between our roster and pipeline there’s 2 possible holes with a few possible solutions.
2C - obviously a pretty big hole evidenced this year already. The hope is Dvorsky can fill that hole and honestly he’s looked really good in the early stages of his career. He could falter, but that’s also a hole we can address when the time is right if needed - I.e. ROR trade etc.
#1D this is the riskiest area that we may not have the solution too. I could pump up Jiricek and Lindstein all I want to, but realistically the chances of them becoming a 1D certainly isn’t definite. But then we need to also ask, is Broberg an option there - maybe, still not too guaranteed. But aside from DuPont I’m not sure there is a gauranteed 1D in a draft. Schaefer looks really good and could possibly track there and if he does and goes after pick 5, sure there’s a miss there. But if venture to guess anyone else in this class and future classes probably have the same odds this early in a development stage as a Lindstein/Jiricek/Broberg. We have a lot of options on defense in our pipeline and I’d be willing to bet we select another one and/or acquire one sometime in the next 2 years that tracks there. Lindstein/Jiricek/Ralph/Fischer all look to be pretty good prospects. I’m not sure if one of them or Broberg will rise to the occasion or not. I’d agree with the sentiment of we need some of them to overachieve draft position, or just one of them - minus Broberg.
What I meant by forgoing the development stage is essentially the development of guys already at the NHL level. There’s alot more to development of a professional athlete than talent. It’s a really good thing to have vets around who have experience of winning and experience of what it’s like day to day to help guys out.
A plan of winning is also a much better environment for younger players. There’s nothing more derailing (than injury) to becoming more consistent than your consistent being not good enough. I’m sure this doesn’t apply to the McDavids and Crosbys of the world, but they’re also extremely special talents. It’s hard to imagine throwing together 8 young guys with little direction has a chance of success in any industry. Look at Buffalo, and Montreal. Those are long hard rebuilds that aren’t guaranteed to work out. There’s no foundation there. I’d much rather make sure we have a foundation built when we have a position filled that’s as hard to fill as 1C as opposed to rotting Thomas/Kyrou for a more prolonged period of time.
