Quote:
Originally Posted by sss1
As much as I would like to believe that VGK will be constrained by bad contracts in the near future, their chances of swapping out building blocks in order to become competitive again won't be that difficult.
They have the following advantages working for them:
1.) They still have good players up and down the roster, (excluding Eichel !)
2.) Regarding Eichel; he has a full off-season and training camp to pull himself together at 100% health. Even if he is the monumental jerk that some make him out to be, he has a good chance of bouncing back IMO. Too much skill.
3.) Vegas is a desirable location to play in. Players may waive contract clauses to play there; free agents will want to sign there.
4.) Since Vegas is still a 'new' franchise, they don't really have any big attachements or commitments to players yet - I feel like they can chuck any player out the window and no one will really care because there is no complete identity built around a core group yet. Someone will argue against this, but it's less than a handful of seasons since they first iced a team. No one cares (fans or management) about players leaving or arriving, and the VGK management has displayed this. And I think it actually works to their advantage (in the short term) to have this mentality.
Down the road the will have to worry about their drafting and prospects, but IMO they can keep afloat for a few years by focusing on their swapping out their current personnel.
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The big advantage Vegas had coming out of the expansion draft was their depth, and they've lost it by bloating their salary structure with 11 players making north of $5M AAV and questionable big ticket deals to older/aging players.
How do you get out from some of these deals without crippling buyouts? How do you sign players, even on discounts when you have next to no cap room? Karlsson, Eichel and Stone all need to provide a heck of a lot more than they currently are to make that expense even palatable moving forward.
Currently they need to make some drastic changes to their bottom 6 forwards, goaltending and bottom pairing on D as I don't think either are good enough to get back to being an elite team anytime soon. Even with the top end talent.