Thorny

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

17 games left. If we want to get to 93 points, gotta go about 14-3. Three losses to give. Gotta win the other 14 games, no way really around it. If we lose 4 more, it would be incredibly unlikely for the mark to come it at below 93, looking at the pacing of the other teams: but still technically possible

I’d rather not go into a season that could potentially be our 5th straight miss under this regime and 14th straight overall without being confident in the goaltending. I’d value that pretty highly and pay accordingly. I’m definitely concerned about backup goalie, in today’s NHL it’s 35/40% as important as your starter. They can go with Levi, but they absolutely need to be right on that evaluation, then

We can beat Detroit 3 times, the issue being they probably aren’t the team pacing for WC2 if we do. It’s still possible but is getting ridiculously hard because of the shrinking runway

Every team does it and returns to the playoffs in a quicker time frame. No, it’s a plan. And by Adams’ own admission, the plan was expected to result in a playoff berth this year. That’s kinda the point We can disagree with the strategy, but the best way to evaluate it is based on the success or failure relative to what it is trying to achieve. By the principles OF a draft and develop strategy, this season represented a noted lag im for giving Adams another shot next year but this isn’t an “all part of the plan” situation right now. This year has been a noted misfire

Building a roster from scratch id go Byram too. But the reason this swap probably requires an accompanying move is because the roster isn’t at scratch and there’s a chance, hypothetically, if Tage doesn’t revert to 1C quality, that we need a 2C more than another 1D when we have 2 other first overall D in the system I’m inclined to think it’s not too difficult to add to the forwards in a way that helps offset the Casey loss, rather than just relying on the “hope” that all the forwards positively regress strategy exclusively, but while I don’t expect a huge addition I’d be pretty skeptical of a Tage / Dylan / Krebs c-spine, even with an improved defence

That we haven’t made the playoffs Also “not blocking the kids” isn’t a narrative it was a statement from the GM lol

It may be set. No I think he’s a 7

4 seasons of Adams, but ya

1) it’s hockey, not Quidditch 2) that reminds me of the XFL thing where instead of kickoffs they had two guys run for the ball and a guy broke his collarbone or something on the first one lmao

What? Their track records aren’t even close to comparable Maybe 70 Someone was arguing with me last year that Tage was Eric Lindros. We should be thankful the comp is merely now Pastrnak

Both ot and the SO are awful formats of hockey

It’s ok to get a joke