[Jiri Hrdina]

Originally Posted by Rutuu

The pattern is familiar...

Be terrible in the preseason...lose the opener...slow-ish october, fire November...half the years we fade out of the playoffs, the other half we sneak in to be bounced in the first round...15yrs later here we are.

Emotions of the "smart" fans, is preseason doesn't matter... evolving to it's the first game and its a long season...lets see where the team is after American thanksgiving / 20games...we shouldn't do anything at the deadline (then we trade 2nd-4th rounders) so it turns to, that part of the draft is unlikely to produce an NHLer, its a good depth deal (actually 10-20% chance you get an NHLer in those rounds)...then after the 1st round / garbage bag day, its right into PDO/ GF&GA chat / look at the rest of the league its a bounce here or there away...the draft hits and the cycle starts all over again.

My solution...we demand this franchise stops giving away mid rounders, stops spending capital on former mid rounders to fill out an NHL ready roster and we get back to what made us successful in the 80's / 90's with the learning that our franchise needs to be built by having more than 7picks in each draft, and spending our capital on our top talent not FAs or plugs that should be coming from our system. If our system isn't good enough to supply perimeter talent, well then we're bad until the system catches up. Also spend money on top coaching talent as that matters, quit scraping the bargain bin (happy with Sutter's hire as that is what we need).

Demand how?