Quote:
Originally Posted by jayswin
Desperate to stay relevant is definitely not how I would describe the current, two time defending Stanley Cup Champions paying the price to load up for another run in their window, lol. That's bonkers.  |
Look at the standings and the metrics. Both the Hurricanes and Panthers are separating themselves from the pack that includes Tampa, Toronto, and Pittsburgh. Carolina is a much better defensive team and Florida is a much better offensive team. They're still good, but they're not the big scary team they were in season's past.
They have some elite players at forward, defense, and goal, and some good secondary players, but they aren't that deep anymore. Hagel does help fill out the bottom of their roster, but my god, that's a crazy overpayment for a team that I'm not sure will be able to beat both Carolina or Florida in a 7 game series.
Killorn-Stamkos-Kucherov
Palat-Point-Cirelli
Hagel-Colton-Perry
Maroon-Bellemare-Joseph
Hedman-Rutta
Sergachev-Cernak
McDonagh-Bogosian
Vasilevskiy-Elliott
They're still a good team, no doubt, but they've lost a lot of their support pieces in the last year, so they rely on their big guys to win games. Take Hagel out of that lineup and it looks pretty poor, so yeah, it's in an effort to stay relevant with the top teams in the league. I'm not sure this pushes them to that level.
And don't forget, last year's roster was nowhere near cap compliant, so you have to take that into consideration. Plus, they faced the Canadiens in the final which was a bit of a mismatch.