Quoting: A_K
Alright I should’ve left out the part out about the prospects. You’re approaching this with way too level of a head and I was steaming red enough to rant about it on here lol. Stenberg has plenty of runway, so does Lindstein. I just wouldn’t have complained if they went something like Musty and Gulyayev who I think have much more talent to work with if they can put it all together. My real gripe is with the later picks but that’s always a crap shoot.
I understand your argument about how you can’t have long leashes with players when the team is competitive but I just don’t see how the guys he brought in were the correct answers. He fumbled the defense and it forced him to retool quicker than he should have. Now I worry that his retool isn’t going to work and we’ll stay stuck in mediocrity. But hey this is what we’ve got so let’s see how it goes.
Musty and Gulyayev aren't perfect by any means, but there's certainly scenarios in which they turn out to be a better pair of picks. But it's a crapshoot. I think there was alot more familiarity with Steen coming into the staff with the two we selected and by no means are they bad picks in that range.
I'd agree the defense has been fumbled. But there's alot of very explainable reasons as to why. Now if we get into another situation in which we have a trade lined up for Krug and he blocks it I will be lost without words on Army's philosophy of not handing out NMCs. It's probably frowned upon, but the only realistic situation in which I can understand the philosophy of it is being able to strongarm a trade through if it needs to happen by the threat of waivers. Regardless playing semantics with a player like Pietrangelo was an incredibly dumb decision.
I don't understand at all the trade for Faulk. We still had Pietrangelo at that time, what were we looking for insurance in the event that Pietrangelo didn't re-sign to at least give us a formidable (assumed) top 4 in that event? We didn't give up all that much for him, but the fit didn't make sense unless he was very certain he wasn't going to be able to get Pietrangelo to re-sign.
Signing Krug - I somewhat understand, don't love, but understand. He was one of the best PPQBs in the league at that time and he hadn't been a large drag defensively playing for Boston. I never imagined that what that would lead to would be trying to push Parayko as the heir apparent to be the #1 D in St. Louis while handcuffing him with bottom pairing defenseman against top lines for a large majority of the game and expecting that to go well. I'll just transition this into Dunn in terms of protection - I didn't expect Seattle to pass on Tarasenko for him. He was effective but also very mistake prone with us but you saw the skill and bite that could very easily translate. If you're trying to win a cup though i'm taking the guy who was quarterbacked the team you had just beat in the Cup over him though. I thought they'd give alot more of a runway to pairing him with Parayko like he was paired with Carlo and it was at least exciting on paper. Not sure if the reasoning for that not being a thing was a distrust in Faulk defensively or a distrust of Krug to be able to handle the minutes.
Trading for Leddy - See above in post with Mokumboi. I can understand that, they certainly paid alot more than i would've been willing to pay for that trade, but my biggest qualm with the trade wasn't Walman going back the other way.
One other thing I can't seem to understand is doubling down on the mistake they had made with Scandella with Leddy after a short sample size. Fairly similar deals, the first one didn't turn out well, so they try it with a different player who isn't much higher of a caliber and expect it to turn out better after another small sample size in which it looks successful.