(assuming he signs) this is another prospect that is close to ready (i.e. not an 18 year old, raw prospect)
One of the reasons that rebuilds typically take at least 3-5 years is that it takes a long time for prospects to go from the draft to becoming contributing players. It simply takes a long time to fill the pipeline.
But somehow - amazingly - in the first year of the rebuild (and from a team that had empty cupboards very recently), they suddenly have a fairly large number of relatively mature prospects.
Under 25 players on the team:
Backlund, Brodie, Bouma, Byron, Monahan and Colborne
Prospects that are ready or very close (can be called up without looking out of place):
Baertschi, Granlund, Knight, Wotherspoon, Ortio, Hanowski, Agostino (and we can add Arnold and Gaudreau to that group)
And it likely won't be long before we can add Poirier to that group (and possibly Sieloff and Ramage) and whoever we draft in the 1st round
They are not all high-end prospects, and they are not all going to turn out. But the sheer volume of guys that are already knocking on the door is very impressive.
|