Great team, but management blew it by not addressing the one weakness on the team-defense. They will almost certainly miss a once-in-a-decade? chance at the Memorial Cup due to this inaction.
Geekie's numbers have been pretty unimpressive the past several weeks on an offensively dominant team. I doubt he will be some #1 centre in the NHL like some posters seem to be predicting. Probably project more like a second-line player in all likelihood.
In fairness Tanner Brown has been playing well for the ICE since he joined the team, he has been a good addition. But yeah, it is a bit like adding a knife to your arsenal when your rival has added a cannon, i.e., Edmonton getting Guhle and Prokop. I wonder if the ICE held back at the trade deadline out of concern that the playoffs might not actually play out completely?
Geekie is a pretty sound playmaker and it doesn't seem that unreasonable to expect him to be a 1C a few years down the road but at the same time it isn't a lock.
The ICE have really been screwed by the pandemic situation more than most other teams. If things had gone normally they probably would have gone on a long playoff run in 2020 (maybe to the conference championship before losing to PA). Then they would have been legitimate championship contenders in 2021 and 2022. As it stands the 2020 and 2021 opportunities were wiped out. They still have 2022, and since I expect Savoie and Geekie to come back for 22-23 and with Benson getting better every day I'd imagine there will be one more all in championship contender season before the team drops off in 2023-24. But still, that's brutal for a new team looking to find a foothold in this city to lose two years of their championship window.