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But that's always been the problem. Not good, not bad, just mediocre and rarely make the playoffs. Middle of the pack draft picks which we then trade away. Over pay for free agents and get burned on long, shitty contracts. Then buy-out said contracts, get hemmed in my cap recapture penalties and then look at our bare cupboards thinking if our 3rd and 4th round picks can crack the lineup.
Now, I'll give them credit, our d-core looks good and there's now a log jam of dmen in the system (especially at RHD for once). But our forward group is weak AF. Looking at how teams played this year in the playoffs, how many of them could we possibly take down in a series? Our success hinges on Petey having a revenge tour (he could, time will tell) and our 2C is Chytil. I really have no idea who they will find to replace Boeser and Suter and at what price point. Everyone else? Good but usually not game breakers. Without a strong, consistent one-two offensive punch, this team will not go far.
I'll always cheer for them and hope they prove me wrong but man, this past season they proved all my pessimistic outlooks to be true and worse in some cases. I don't know how they fix this without a rebuild but that would mean losing Hughes. Stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Edit: before last year started, I had really big concerns about the d group they had assembled and I was right to doubt them. This year, I have the same feeling towards the forward group.
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