Quote:
Originally Posted by FBI
I've actually been pretty happy with rebuild year 1 so far.
Positives:
-Hartley has players on board for hard working play, winning culture, and to some extent: accountability
-Backlund becoming the player we were hoping for and showing that he is an important part of the rebuild
-Burke at the helm should hopefully make some good moves (I'm still on the fence about Burke but he generally gets positive feedback)
-Gio showing he was an excellent choice for captain, having career year and potential Olympian
-Brodie and Bouma really coming into their own
-Moneyhands, don't need to say much more
-Our ahl team playing great and some of our future pieces shining (Reinhart, Knight, Granlund, Ortio)
-Our round 1 picks plus gaudreau plus gillies dominating
-Russell being a big surprise
-Goalies slowly coming around, doing not that bad at all for first year rebuild
Negatives:
-Baertschi, probably not handled the greatest despite putting up points and now taking his time in finding his game in the minors. Really hope he bounces back for Rebuild Year 2
-Dead weight vets: Wideman (what happened to this guy), Stempniak, David jones, galiardi, all majorly underperforming, hoping to ditch them for some assets
Going ahead I am inclined to believe that rebuild year 2 we will actually improve in the standings.
Continued improvement for some of our breakout players + shedding of dead weight + hunger of new potential big time players for us = Better than bottom 3 in the league.
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I am somewhat surprised that this reaching statement (bolded) was taken as fact.
Gaudreau and Gillies have been dominating at their level.
Klimchuck, Poirer and Jankowski are not anywhere close to being dominate.
Backlund and Baertschi were better as 19 year olds in the CHL..
It is very hard to evaluate our Heat players. The stat lines of Granlund, Knight and Rienhart are so much better than what we have been accustomed to. That is a function of the Heat being a much more talented / better AHL team than we have had for a long time. The rising tide floats all ships.
The best players on the Heat have been Byron, Jones, Street, Billins . ... bubble AHL/NHL players
Brodie's 34 pts (basically leading the team in scoring) in 68 games as a 20 year old rookie pro with a +3 on the lowest scoring team in the AHL was an indicator that he was special. He didn't get a bunch of cheap assists or meaningless points in run away games.