How do you know other than the next 1 or 2 drafts, how are you to know how good a particular draft class will be past the top pick(s)?
Because anyone who's read about the 2025 draft class knows it's particularly deep, extending beyond the top 3. It's a better percentage year, one that should be taken advantage of.
You seem to believe the Pens can just draft there way out of this, when in reality they are drafting fillers where they'll be selecting and not the next core. They could be a decade or more before the "Next Core" is doing anything tangible.
Are you ready for that?
I don't think you are pushing the narrative you are.
Yes. 100%. You doubt me because you don't know me, and make arrogant assumptions anyway.
As long as they try their damnest to strive towards a Cup every year, I will support it and watch every game. I would rather watch 82 games of what the Sharks did last year than what the Pens did, because at least one team is actually serious about trying to get to the top of the mountain. They care. The Penguins no longer do. Not really.
Drafting and asset hoarding is the way out of this. That's how you build a new foundation. You sure as hell don't do it by what they're doing right now.
All this leads to is Minnesota Wild territory. That is not a direction a fan should support imo.
Believe it or not sports are entertainment and for fun and a distraction from real life. not some weird computer simulation where fan satisfaction is solely determined by results.
It’s more fun when the team is good sure, but many of us want to see the best 2 players of this era (IMO) never don another jersey and don’t really care about the consequences (real or perceived). To ignore there’s a human element is misguided, in my opinion.
That's the thing you're having difficulty understanding. It's less fun when you go into a year knowing your team has no chance to win and has no real ambition to get back there. At least that's how it is for me, since I'm still a fan of the actual team, and not just 3 players.
It's a hopeless feeling in the off-seasons, where we just look mildly at pretender moves, doomed to do this crap for 3-4 more years. There is nothing interesting or exciting about that.
If years are to be fruitless in terms of playoffs, I would prefer they do what is necessary to rebuild a proper foundation during this time, rather than finish 9th place and get stuck in purgatory.
Also- to act like there’s a guarantee that moving the core will result in a good things and that holding on to them won’t is disingenuous.
The return on Sid, and utilizing the 39 million in cap you'd otherwise spend on him to acquire futures, is definitely the way to go here.
Keeping Sid makes us draft worse, prevents trades and departures we need to happen, and slows down progress towards Cups.
There are no guarantees with drafting and youth, but the math starts to get good when you account for all these picks and assets that would come as a result of this.
The only value in keeping him is the emotional payoff, of seeing him retire a Penguin. And sorry, but that just doesn't transcend the needs of the team and its future.
Besides, if he stays, he's only doing so out of a sense of guilt, loyalty and staying in his comfort zone. I know he'd end up happier in Colorado, chasing Cups with Mac, after he adjusts to the new environment.
He wants to compete in the playoffs. He doesn't wanna golf in April. And he doesn't want to end his career not having won a round for 10 years.
He's just too noble to prioritize himself.
So basically what you guys are supporting is making him have a miserable end to his career, while at the same time sabotaging the development of the team's prospect pool. Huge fans lol.