What do you think of the team?

[Retire91]

Still on track. To me the performance and coaching of this team this season really didn't matter. We are still in the collect and develop talent phase. The coaching change and impact on the performance is nice but wasn't necessary for any adjustment in me feeling like things are on track. We have exciting young core players on the ice and locked in for contract and more in the pipeline and we are further along than we could have hoped for than most any other GM mainly because I think it takes an Yzerman to communicate to management that this rebuild needed and still needs patience.

 

[19 for president]

I think the most important things have gone right for this team.

Larkin, Raymond, and Seider all have solid contracts. Edvinsson is looking like a foundational piece to be added to that group. Debrincat is pretty good. Kasper is looking like he can be a positive impact player. Danielson/ASP/Cossa are a little further off but trending well.

The pieces of lesser performance haven't gone as well. Copp/compher/chairot are fine. Ultimately not what you want for their salary but they contributed to the improvement of this team. Rasmussen and Veleno haven't been able to take that next step.

But here is thing: guys like Copp/Compher/Chairot/Petry/Gustafsson/Holl weren't brought in to win a cup. People probably don't want to accept some of this but ultimately, when you stop and think about how meticulously patient Yzerman has been, its clear these moves were about the floor of the team and not the ceiling.

These guys were brought in to plug some holes, raise the floor of this team and build a culture around buzzwords like focus and compete. In that regard I think they have been positive influences to the younger players. This team seems to have a very "professional" culture. They were brought in to buy time while the key foundational pieces develop.

I largely agree with this assessment overall. I do think who we've brought in at FA's does raise some question marks about our pro scouting. Once the cap starts to get legit tight we have to make sure we are getting equal or great cap value for our players. Kubalik, Sprong, Ghost, Lyon, Staal, Kane and Talbot have all been solid. Stevie seems to do well on the 1/2 year deals but most of our long term deals have been at best equal value or below from the moment they signed.

Copp, Chiarot, Compher, Tank, Gus, Holl are all pretty meh to bad contracts. Granted I think part of this is you have to overpay to get players to sign with a rebuilding team, but I'd still like to see us win at least a few of these contracts. In this case I'm more calling out the Gus & Tank signings because we weren't a cellar team last year. Neither signing really addressed what we lost in FA. Husso I think was a bad break with him never being the same after his injury. Our RFA signings have been very solid too for the most part (DBC, Larkin, Mo, Ray). Veleno and Ras may be a bit overpaid but I can understand overpaying a bit on futures for young guys.

I see landing another offensive difference maker at forward one of the biggest issues go forward. Larkin will be too old by the time we compete. That leaves us with Ray. I like all of 1st round pieces but we do need some guys that can drive offensive play. I think we are building like Boston but they still had Pasta and Marchand to go with Kreiji and Berg.

 

[SantosHalper]

T-Mc is due for another evaluation line shuffle, likely for the Habs game tomorrow night, I do find the timing of Elmer being called up interesting, I figured he would be next month or after the TDL.

I was kind of expecting the next shake up to try Kasper at 2C with a new body at 1LW (I kinda of thought Ras), so maybe not with this shuffle, but if Elmer can hold his own defensively (he looked quite responsible most of last night) for a week or so, he just might find himself as the 1LW for an evaluation cycle before the TDL.

It would be awesome for the wings to get another in-season graduate or two this year (Kasper is already one).

Too bad Mazur got hurt, piano pulling job in the 1st would have been right up his alley.
Mazur - Larkin - Ray
Cat - Kasper - Kane
Brgr - Copp/JT - Tank
Ras - Copp/JT - Elmer