jimmyjets
Rejoint: oct. 2016
Messages: 932
Mentions "j'aime": 317
You obviously put a lot of thought into this one but some of your assumptions or things you've "heard" are not correct.
Blake Wheeler has been nominated for the Mark Messier award as the best leader in the NHL before. He admitted he was too hard on people 2 seasons ago and there haven't been any rumours since.
If Seattle would take that pile of bottom end players instead of Logan Stanley, Mason Appleton or Mikheal Berdin I would be all about it but I wouldn't take that if I were them. I'd be taking the big LHD that was a former 1st round pick, the waiver exempt goalie or the middle 6 winger instead of a fist full of magic beans that likely don't yield a single NHL player.
Assuming Seattle takes Stanley, then we need Samberg to run JMo, Heinola, Samberg and have Left D be the strength of our back end so we then can't do the Kubalik trade. I'm not looking to help Chicago at all...
JMo (26) - DeMelo (28)
Heinola (20) - Pionk (25)
Samberg (22) - Kovacevic (23)
Beaulieu - Niku
Take the growing pains of turning the back end over to youth. Hopefully draft another RHD in the first 2 rounds and ideally a RW with top 6 potential as well. I'd keep 17OA and draft Ceulmans (RD) / Coranato (RW). Come back in the 2nd round and target the other position. i.e. if you draft a forward in round 1 look at Mailloux or Iorio. If we grab Ceulmans look at Chase Stillman. Maybe another RW slips.
We have a boatload of capspace, so hopefully we can add a top 6 winger or top 4 RHD to really cement things but I think we can't overreact based on the losing streak at the end of the year where we PDO'd at 93 (just super unlucky for that stretch) or the Habs series when we were without our top pair RD, our allstar C and came off a 9 day gap between games. Teams were 1-4 going into that series with that amount of time between games and 3 of them were swept. Lifetime now teams are 1-5 in that scenario where 4 of them were swept. That is just crazy but it's too much time between games and all rhythm/momentum is gone.
This year wasn't our year. Next year really could be though. I just don't think Pomo will play 3 rookies on D, but that likely leads us to the longest term success. We will be a playoff team again next year with no trades and no impact signings.
I would target a winger like Armia, who can PK more than Granlund and it's also possible that Perfetti is retti for a middle 6 role.
Wheeler is aging but I don't think moving him is the right thing to do. Keep him but just move him down the lineup. He played half the year with broken ribs and he still put up 46 points in 50 games.