How about this as an idea. If the trade isn't sexy, don't make the deal.
We aren't one, two or three sensible roster shore ups away from real contention. We're a moon shot away from being championship caliber. Doesn't really look like there's been any maturation in this group that would suggest they're all business now.
Actually we are 4-players shy of being true contenders, and these players dont need to be superstars, just good defensively....our skill is on par with Florida and Edmonton its our lack of hits/blocks and gritt in the bottom 6, and on our back end.
All we have to do is upgrade these players with guys that do just that:
Kampf
Domi
Jarnkrok
Timmins
Myers
Reaves
Dewar
Mermis
And its possible, there should be no excuses....every pick should be available as well.
As I've mentioned before not one draft pick in the next 10+ years will turn out to be the player Marner is, and if we dont get sh*t done this tdl and get chewed up in the playoffs Mitch will walk 100%
And i dont want to hear, we can just replace him with Rantanen....sure, but we're still left with all the holes, Tavares potentially walking aswell....its going to be one hell of an offseason if we dont make progression.
If management moved three first round picks this tdl i wouldn't complain, especially if it gives us a real chance of winning with this core....otherwise its all a wash, what a waste of one of our best chances to build something special in decades.
I dont want to get deep into it, but we really fkd things up early on in this rebuild....Babcock i think was the only one willing to fully rebuild and take the time, if you go back on interviews he told everyone be prepared for the burn and that it would take a few years to build everything up....but once we got Nylander, Marner & Matthews everything was cut short, we made the worst move possible by moving Kadri for Tavares....i hated it from the start, we moved a player with just as much skill or more for someone double the cap hit...yep, and we all know what came after that, management thought we could win now....man we're they wrong, if we signed Kadri and kept rebuilding instead of bringing in guys to compete, we would have our top RD right now, depth in our top6 and obviously depth on the back end.
Its amazing how much that move affected this cores future, and media didn't help...they practically pushed Kadri out of Toronto because he got suspended in the pkayoffs for standing up for his damn team, haha something Tavares rarely does, and one thing we've been lacking since he left.
Dwelling on the past wont do us any good though, we need to fix whatever can be fixed before this core gets scrapped.....it really gets me triggered though that Shanny let this happen but wont let management go full tilt and move picks for potentially our last chance with this core....makes me sick, someone's definitely getting paid under the table by another organization, none of this makes any sense especially on a personal standpoint, these guys are supposed to have the best in the game surrounding them.
See Edmonton did the same crap our management did, they brought in a solid GM with a good track record....not just someone rich guys son, a guy with knowledge of the game....and he turned sh*t around, made bold moves and look at them now.
Management should wake up, otherwise everyone's going to get fired....then again does mlse really care about winning a cup, i beg to differ.
The Raptors won a championship, and how did they do that? Because we have a GM that gets shit done, and understands the game and has a good connection with the players, also he's not afraid to make bold moves.