Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe
As for cap space down the road: Who cares? Nobody, that's who.
What matters is the cap space you make today while Crosby is on the roster. You don't care about the cap space tomorrow when he is not. Worrying about that is just strange, especially with the cap going up. This isn't the same situation as Calgary is in. Calgary isn't trying to 'win it for Huberdeau'. A rebuild is a legitimate course of action open for the Flames, trading Huberdeau if there was a good market would be a legitimate move, etc. Trading Crosby? Rebuilding and just watching Crosby play hard 'just to show the kids'? No, that's not a legitimate course of action.
Dubas has to do everything he can to make the Penguins better today, and he accomplished this. He also added cap room while doing so, which blows my mind. No, it does NOT matter that cap gets added later - nobody cares about that as it doesn't matter since we all know that the Penguins will rebuild once Crosby retires, and the cap is set to (dramatically?) increase over the new 4-5 years anyway.
I don't think the Penguins are contenders with this, but they are unquestionably stronger. I would imagine that - barring significant injuries - they make the playoffs. That's all that matters to them for as long as Crosby is an active player in this league.
|
This really is the crux of it. Will the Karlsson contract look especially bad in years 3 and 4? Undoubtedly. Will Crosby possibly be retired in years 3 and 4 of the Karlsson contract? Very possibly and that's the point of it.
I think that we all as Pens fans have accepted that once Sid retires this is going to be a
bad team for a while. We've known that for a couple of years now and we've accepted it. The rebuild is going to be painful. That was going to be the case regardless of Dubas making this trade, the difference is that for the next season or two, this move puts us in a way better position.
He improved our forward group, he improved our defensive core, and he gave up minimal assets to do so, while also clearing out some anchor contracts that were already ugly
now, let alone years down the road. He moved multiple bad contracts (with minimal potential upside) for one bad contract (that has the potential to NOT be a bad contract if Karlsson can perform at a high level).
I'm not planning the cup parade but I'm so much more excited looking at this roster now than the roster we had on June 30th.