Quote:
Originally Posted by Mathgod
Imagine for a minute...
- Huby and Kadri have bounce back years under coaching that allows them to play to their strengths.
- Kylly returns and bolsters the team's depth on the blue line.
- Wolf either pushes Marky to play better or replaces him as the starter at some point.
- Mang comes back fully healthy and plays closer to the way he did in his 35 goal campaign.
- Young talent from the Wranglers are given more of a chance to push for roster spots than they had under Sutter.
- Overall lack of negative vibe between players and coach, resulting in more consistent play than we saw from the team last year.
- Actually practicing the power play.
- Actually practicing 3 on 3 and the shootout.
Tons of reasons to think the upcoming season will be much better than last. This is a talented roster that should not only have made the playoffs but been a hard out once they got there. Granted, any major personnel changes to the roster would throw a wrench into the outlook for the upcoming season.
Connie & Co have complicated decisions ahead. This offseason will not be an easy one to navigate.
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Much of, or some of this is certainly within the realm of possibility next year. This still doesn't change the fact that anything short of massive bounce back seasons from the goaltending, Huberdeau and Kadri is going to result in falling short of expectations again, even if the team does make the playoffs.
This team made the Tkachuk trade to continue to "win now" when other, more rebuild type deals were available. If you're not winning in these first 2-3 seasons and legitimately challenging for the division, what exactly are we doing? All these older, top of the lineup players are only going to decline from now and sitting on this lineup for another couple of seasons could easily mean disaster (and that's another spree of 9-11 finishes in the conference).