[Fan69]

So now that the feeding frenzy is over for Eichel ( and thankfully so ) where exactly do we stand with this team?

I am one of the few that was really reluctant to expend futures for Eichel and my reasoning is as follows.
would I like a franchise center? sure I would. However I am also a realist. a number one center is not the end game of a championship or the oilers, Toronto and Buffalo and Boston would just have been trading cups the last few years. Many posters put forth how a franchise changed trading for a certain player but exclude the fifty other things that have to go right to win a championship.

In my mind depth wins championships and depth at all positions. I believe that we finally have that depth and that pipeline and this is the first year we are really seeing it.
we have managed to graduate a number of players of the last couple of years and we still have by my count 3 or four surefire NHL ers and a couple will probably play bottom six, bottom pairing defence players. Wolf I see making back up but maybe not surefire starter.
To me Zary, Pelletier, and Coronato will be sure fire players with middle to top six roles. the two defencemen I don't see farther than bottom pairing, hopefully they surprise. Honorable mention to Poirier and Stromgren (especially this guy ) and maybe Pospisil and Rucicka playing bottom roles. I like Walker and expect he wont be sent down I think they will look to keep him on the team, I think him and Sean will have chemistry.

The point is is that the depth that may be coming for this team is going to make this team extremely difficult to play against. We could all be talking next year about what a great second line center Dube is and that Oliver is indeed a top pairing defencemen. what I am trying to get at is we are getting top level players that are just now making themselves difference makers after the drafting philosophy changed several years ago. Players that years past would not have been taken by Calgary.

So do we have a frontline center? No.
Do we have depth at the position? Yes.
Sean, Lindholm, and Dube with Backlund is no slouch squad either, especially if Dube continues to improve.

From a number of posters on this site and others are just convinced that without a number one center this team is going strong on Mediocre. I say with the depth we have and will put forth over the next couple of years we will be an upper echelon team team that no one will want to play against.

Some have put forward that having Monahan on the fourth line is a waste. I say get him a good partner and its actually a luxury.(hoping Walker and him have some chemistry.)

I expect that Matty will be traded by the deadline ( for every reason other than he is not a top line player) and I believe that the return will be underwhelming. two seconds and a third, low end first and mid level prospect kind of thing, or a single really good prospect.
However adding those assets to this draft could have our prospect base as listed above with a player with higher upside than Zary not to mention what we get in the second or if we do get extra picks from the Tkachuk deal how much that would add to our base or trading into the first for a higher quality player.

Am I a Tre apologist? Nope. two years of Glen was unforgivable and the Hamonic trade was an utter disaster ( that first could have been the pick that made the Eichel trade today) how different does this team look with just the assets the Isles took? in my mind a lot different and probably would have been the assets that would have swung Eichel here without gutting our stockpile. Now i will put a caveat on that that I do believe that ownership pushes for playoffs because otherwise I cant justify the price or the timing.

so for all of the gnashing of teeth here about where the franchise is I am one of the optimists that think that we are just starting to see the good things come out and Tre should get some credit for the drafting and giving us something this team has never had.. a pipeline of quality NHL players.