NHL truly is a weird league. They have established a good, reliable system of playing 82 games to determine who the best teams are. Yet somehow, people are totally convinced that it's the RNG lottery ball simulator raffle after those 82 games that matters.
With or without Monahan and Toffoli, we're one Hellebuyck slump away from going back to the drawing board without a 2C, with a shoddy right side of the defense, and some key extensions looming ahead. That's hardly a sign of an unusual team. I don't think there are any, to be honest.
The variability, or luck factors don't alter the conditions I listed for this year's Jets.
A Helle slump
A Scheifele suspension
A Morrissey injury
etc, etc, etc.
could derail our PO hopes.
TD rentals do not provide any guarantees. Neither do the 4 draft picks we have given up. None are going to be high picks.
I would have much preferred we got a 2C during the off-season. One with some term. I also would have preferred upgrading our RD. Those things didn't happen. But the team showed it was better than most of us expected, even without having solved those issues. So now we are having to go the less efficient route to solving them.
I would not be supporting getting these rentals if the team had not shown so much potential in the first half, nor had the prospects to be able to withstand a hit to our draft capital. But under the circumstances we have, I'm all in. This is a first for me.