Well Guerin said today he expects playoffs soooo. They need to do a major retool yes, but they won’t admit it while Leipold is around.

Dumba and Brodin for the 2 - 1sts, and Suzuki???

I agree with you, but ownership just doesn't seem to see it that way. The thing about the Zucker trade is it brought in futures and a roster player to take Zucker's spot for this season. Guerin was pretty clear he still wants them to make the playoffs since they're in a position to realistically do it, so while they probably should trade Brodin and Staal now while they have good value, they won't unless what they're looking for comes back. Guerin is listening to offers on Brodin and Dumba, but that doesn't mean a deal is being seriously discussed.

It's an exercise on how far into a rebuild can you get before the owner realizes it's happening. Fenton went too far, too fast for his own good. lol

What are they supposed to say?

"We expect to suck and not compete while we try to trade our best players and rebuild" ? ... the league would be all over them for tanking if they did. The biggest cliche in hockey is "we expect to compete and to be in the playoffs".. no one ever admits to tanking. Hell even Yzerman wouldn't say Detroit's tanking and he'd say they're trying to get to the playoffs.

The thing is I think Leipold is serious. He spent $196m on Suter and Parise, so he's probably pushing for them to keep trying while they're around making real money. Guerin might see what needs to be done and start working that way in ways he can defend to ownership (e.g. Zucker out, Galchenyuk in), but Suter and Parise have 2 more seasons after this where they're paid a decent amount of real cash before their deals dip into the territory of being attractive to Melnyk.