Thorny

The lack of urgency in addressing that hole for a team that hasn’t made the playoffs in a decade was absurdly troubling “oh, he’ll be back mid season”. As if the games beforehand don’t represent crucial, unmissable points to this team

He’s the next 3C

As far as your argument goes it’s fine. I agree they were in shambles relative to expected results. I don’t agree we were in shambles relative to turnaround to achieving success: that seemed to be the way KA was using it: as an excuse. “Look, it takes a long time” Only by way of choice only by way of competence only a master of evil, darth

There’s “shambles” based on expected performance and “shambles” based on distance from success. I think my argument is consistent here because, even as captain of the “KA has failed so far” fan club, I’m also not the dude firing him and I’m also not the dude saying with a few prudent changes this can’t be turned around fast you are correct I wanted JB canned but that’s not the same thing as thinking the franchise was in shambles relative to turn around to success: merely by way of how much we had failed relative to expectations We absolutely should be a playoff team next year. We absolutely should have been this year. I wouldn’t be firing KA because he’s fallen incredibly short, I’d be firing him because it would be incredible we fell short so many times when distance from success was imminently achievable I post a lot, I’m not sure how much more heavy handed I can be in driving home this point time and time again: the frustration comes from the fact this is ABSOLUTELY salvageable but we simply refuse to measure results in the now - - - Frankly, and this is based on league wise results of the past, solid past precedent: a team with the will to act, with that will informed by competence, is very rarely more than a single offseason away from reasonably fielding a playoff team when it’s ~ a 50/50 proposition. And that team *should* be able to do it with 2 off seasons Nearly 70% of the current league hasn’t gone more than *2* seasons sans playoffs This will be Adams’ 5th offseason

When did he call me that? Lol

None of this represents a legitimate obstacle to finding a way to finish 16/32 once in 4 years By all means: sign up some mercenaries to achieve a goal, to make the playoffs. The connotation is ridiculous but whatever: they are all “mercenaries” People don’t want to come here because we suck? Field a winner in any way you can: home grown or not. Pay what you need to pay. Stop measuring assets by way of what they will grant you in the future: evaluate and assess how your assets can be parlayed into a playoff berth right now

Agree. For the plan to have been “successful”, nothing short of Adams assembling a perennial cup contender is acceptable. That’s not harsh: that’s what they said they wanted to build They could have set their sights lower: they could have said the aim was to make the playoffs. But that’s not what they wanted. And their execution certainly reflected that. Absolutely no praise deserved for falling short and achieving something that would have been an appropriate goal IF the time frame was a couple years. That wasn’t the intrinsic goal of the plan. The fact they willingly threw away 3 years for development and evaluation proves it beyond a shadow of a doubt

Also funny that Botterill was to keep his job if he merely cut costs. So apparently TP didn’t think the roster was in shambles at all. It’s almost impossible to parse the sh*t these guys say, truthfully. It’s good we can ignore the noise and simply measure based on results

Half the fanbase is still, “we got this, stay the course” after a historically bad 13 years and a putrid league relative last 4. Right or wrong, I think that probably says something about reluctance to change

“In shambles” LMAO 4 years later 80% of our best players are Botterill guys

The biggest thing people miss is that by the prism of wanting an exceptionally slow, long form, “we love to be patient and never have results as long as the prospect pool ranks highly” style rebuild: everyone else does it/ has done it faster. Except for the exceptionally distant outliers we can hope that it’ll just take more time, but the plan has already proven to have objectively struggled relative to other teams (most teams do this, we aren’t special) who have employed it we are forced to erroneously tout “length” of build as a badge of honor (patience!) because we have no other metric by which we can compare to other teams. “Maybe if our long build is longest we’ll be best” lol No, the plan has failed so far. Its first big goal measure was this season and we’ve failed. By the intrinsic targets of this specific plan. That doesn’t mean I’m ready to scrap the regime but I wouldn’t give them a 3rd mulligan if we make the playoffs next year, that in and of itself isn’t the mark of a “successful” plan anymore as taking 5 years to make the playoffs is an absurdly long time and the stated point of a long term build was to avoid “merely fielding a playoff team”. If that’s all we wanted it’s a 1-3 year process max with competence

I’m hoping he brings in a backup but history suggests he bet on Levi to do something even more unlikely this season, so it would be pretty stupid to think he wouldn’t attempt a slightly less risky gamble next year It’s the default until proven otherwise

It really should be a legit 3C. I’m not at all comfortable with the odds of Thompson/Cozens/Krebs working out great in a year we need to convert I get we need to hope for the best with Tage and Dylan, cause trading for better is unlikely but not bringing in someone that can at least compete and push Krebs would seem wildly negligent, especially given he traded away Mittelstadt. The C spine has to be good

The biggest rug being continually pulled over the eyes of the fanbase is that something needs to be “built”. Over a long period of time. Address the roster holes. Prioritize winning right now. The goal should be fielding a playoff team before “building” a cup winner

If you a have a team full of guys, already making millions of dollars, who had to bust their ass to make the nhl in the first place, who NEED to be led, you are never going to win, anyways. If you are trying to choose a captain to “right the ship”, you’ve already lost. Only when the actual C designation is mostly meaningless because the franchise itself has an actual expectation of WINNING and success, will adept captains flow. Which individual player wears the C is incredibly overrated. It’s going to Dahlin, because we are going to get our money’s worth on the contract. Leading by example is by far the most important thing: the C being on an actual good, hardworking player. Dahlin is our best player by orders of magnitude. It’s a no brainer An elite player *on ice* can barely make a difference alone on a 23 man roster. You think Alex Tuch, or anyone, is going to motivate a team of underachievers to greater height purely by preaching gospel? Dream on

Who cares?? Why does specifically “beating Detroit” to the playoffs matter? Our competition is with the entire league not the redwings. Prove some vain idea we couldn’t have done it quicker because they took a long time? Misery having company doesn’t prove 95% of all teams have managed to find joy by a multitude of strategies in a much quicker time frame besides, they are only like half way to our drought. They’d have to match our 13 years first

I know there’s a ton of people who feel our lost season mitigated somewhat by Detroit missing but honestly gotta say it doesn’t do much for me

We aren’t even chasing Detroit now Islanders are in 8th. Beating Detroit 3 time likely just solidifies the islanders

Plus I don’t want to be tempted to be locked in to any extra commitment to Tuch because of him wearing the C. Deciding we need to give him a long term deal. He’s already arguably tailing off

They are still ahead of us by points % but we could stay ahead of them now in points from here in, wouldn’t be surprised. Guentzel trade I think was a big thing for the psyche

Dahlin / Dahlin Easy choice Best player, longest contract, plays almost every game. Reliable. Still young. Young guys look up to him. Drafted by the team. Draft and dev strategy needs a draft and dev captain

End of an era in Pittsburgh looks like

We can go 14-3 or 13–2-2 or 12-1-4 or 11-0-6 those are really the only options

Right. We can’t afford to give up 7 points of the remaining 34. Only 6

No, because we have the capital in pick and prospects to handle any transaction we need