That 2014/2015 team was looking scary, too, up until **** hit the fan. Who knows what would have happened that year.
What are you really gonna do, though? Lombardi bent over backwards to assemble what he believed was a room full of consummate pros, and two go off the deep end with drugs, and one starts beating his wife. All in the span of a year, too. How do you possibly prepare for that as a GM?
I don't blame Lombardi for Voynov and Richards. You're taking a hit there regardless.
What I do blame him for are the panic moves following. The Sekera trade, and honestly, the Lucic trade, too. Hindsight is always 20/20, but you have to question the decision of spending assets to fill a forward hole that could have been filled by cash. Williams was coming off a bad year in 2015, sure, but so was everyone. Williams was always nails, and exactly the kind of guy you need in the room in a situation like this. He was the one--not Kopitar, Brown, Quick, not any of those guys--who roused the troops pre-game six in 2012 SCF. That always stuck with me. Williams is a ****ing warrior, man, and down year or not, you let him just walk? And for entirely reasonable money, too.
Idk. Really have to scratch your head with that, considering the assets parted with to bring in Lucic, and the fact that he's likely not going to re-sign. You send Jones somewhere else, draft Conner, and you have Miller still in the system. Really, really questionable asset management, but that's been Lombardi's problem since 2014.
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