I’m wondering if Conny is stuck until the regular season to move Lindholm and Hanifin, if they don’t sign. It might be better to be patient and see how things develop through the rest of the offseason and, if need be, into the season. Closer to the season, I think teams will start to eventually look at their rosters and see holes that they couldn’t fill through free agency and the market might harden again.
We may have backed ourselves in a bit of a corner and lost a lot of leverage by saying that we didn’t want to take most of our key free agents into the season without extensions being done.
The restraint shown by the GMs this week was pretty surprising. Usually you see the value of roster players go up through the draft when teams recognize that they can’t address most of their immediate needs through the draft and use their picks as capital to fill those needs. This year it was the opposite - every team seemed convinced that their picks in the first three rounds are guaranteed hits. They didn’t want to give up the “lottery ticket” that could be worth a fortune to get roster players that they have to fit into the cap. Even Lindholm and Hanifin, with their team friendly deals couldn’t make teams budge.
GMs may have overvalued the draft this year which could bite the teams in the ass if they bust.
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