[Caged Great]

The Jets are the victim of shooting themselves directly in the foot. It is perfectly fine to let players walk or to trade them off at the deadline. However, if you don't replace them with at least semi-comparable guys, that will screw you over. With their season a year ago, they could have added free agents on July 1st, but they wanted the kids to take spots. If you're counting on youth to step in and be as good as a veteran, that's just stupid. They have to earn it and show they're ready. A guy like Jooris last season showed he was ready and took a spot. Now that they're a bottom feeder, they are going to have a hell of a time to acquire players through free agency unless they over pay. That will be magnified with Byfuglien and Ladd both likely leaving and Trouba sounding like he wants out as well.

It makes perfect sense that they've regressed, you can't lose quality depth players and not replace them with other quality depth guys and expect things to remain the same. Typically good depth players are effective on special teams, especially the PK. Their -18 rating when not 5 on 5 shows that.

Calgary is in a different position because of the fact that they are already a bottom 5 team. If they decide to pull the trigger on a bunch of guys, they have some temp guys that can play and they have the opportunity to acquire players on July 1st just because of Johnny Gaudreau. Players will go to teams with young star players like Frolik because they eventually are on their way up.