The Age Of Tanking Is Over Just In Time To Ruin the Wild's Championship Window

Would a tank have set well with Kaprizov or Boldy?  We saw a lot of the young talent they had to offer was...bleh.  Even going first or second overall doesn't guarantee you get "the right guy."

Benoit Pouliot: need I say more?

There has been a ton of mis-management of this team, but I would put the lack of success on this decade on two major points,  first the refusal to tank when it was clear they had NO SHOT at the cup and were going to be a one-and-out playoff team.  You don't need to try to be the worst in the league, but realize when you need to be active sellers. When you concede to being a seller at the deadline, often you can be overpaid for an asset by a team trying to win a cup.

I would imagine their is pressure from the ownership group that is afraid of losing season ticket holders when they miss the playoffs, and they want the revenue from a couple home sellouts at playoff prices, but there have been four or five years they should have been shedding dead weight, clearing cap, and gaining prospects or picks.  The refusal to do so has made them buyers of more dead weight, unable to clear cap, and losers of picks or prospects.

The second giant mistake was the management of the Parise/Suter situation.  I was fine with the idea of brining them in and giving it a shot.  Several years down the road it was clear that they were not going to bring a ton of success and you had to make a change.  When  that was CRYSTAL FREAKING CLEAR, there was a trade offer from was it the Islanders or the Rangers? for Parise.  His returns were diminishing, his attitude was poor, and the  team was not improving.  His contract was going to provide less and less value with each passing year.  They should have unloaded him for anything they could get because the value of ditching the contract and decreasing performance was more valuable that whatever lousy package we were offered in return.  They declined to make the deal.

Then you have the buyouts.  I heard they were going to buyout both deals.  I thought that was a mistake given te situation it created.  I would have bought out Parise and kept Suter.  Suter was not great, and his attitude was poor as well, but he still had some value as a defenseman who ate minutes.  You could have kept him another year, and then tried to find some similar deal from an interested party to ditch his contract, or kept playing him as long as you could.  He might not have played up to the salary, but the fact that he could even be a second pairing defenseman at a high salary was much better than getting NOTHING for that high salary.  We had to pay to make him leave, then pay again for someone to play that slot which costs your ability to fill other holes.  You still might be keeping a whiner on the roster, but you are getting some level of utility, instead we got none unless you buy the addition by subtraction, but he proved he could still play.

Those two things have doomed us to mediocrity.

53 minutes ago, Dis-allowed display name said:

The second giant mistake was the management of the Parise/Suter situation.  I was fine with the idea of brining them in and giving it a shot.  Several years down the road it was clear that they were not going to bring a ton of success and you had to make a change.  When  that was CRYSTAL FREAKING CLEAR, there was a trade offer from was it the Islanders or the Rangers? for Parise.  His returns were diminishing, his attitude was poor, and the  team was not improving.  His contract was going to provide less and less value with each passing year.  They should have unloaded him for anything they could get because the value of ditching the contract and decreasing performance was more valuable that whatever lousy package we were offered in return.  They declined to make the deal.

Then you have the buyouts.  I heard they were going to buyout both deals.  I thought that was a mistake given te situation it created.  I would have bought out Parise and kept Suter.  Suter was not great, and his attitude was poor as well, but he still had some value as a defenseman who ate minutes.  You could have kept him another year, and then tried to find some similar deal from an interested party to ditch his contract, or kept playing him as long as you could.  He might not have played up to the salary, but the fact that he could even be a second pairing defenseman at a high salary was much better than getting NOTHING for that high salary.  We had to pay to make him leave, then pay again for someone to play that slot which costs your ability to fill other holes.  You still might be keeping a whiner on the roster, but you are getting some level of utility, instead we got none unless you buy the addition by subtraction, but he proved he could still play.

This is the plan I think I would have gone with, except if IIRC Guerin had a deal and Lou pulled a bait and switch type of thing on him. Some may say Guerin's ego might have gotten in the way, but I think it's worse than that. Had Guerin taken the switch, word would have gotten out that you could do that to him. This would have been bad for future deals. I'm glad Guerin didn't give in and he had a TDL to work with so he had limited time to decide. Lou tried to put him on the clock to make a poor decision.

Still, had we gotten something, it may have been worse than nothing, it might have been some schlub taking up a roster spot in the A that has no business being in the organization. Or, it could have been a pick?

With Suter, I think asking him to waive his NMC was a necessity. Uncomfortable as it would have been, it would have given Suter a chance to do something for the organization, or not. Guerin would have then known how committed he was to this team. He could have asked and bought him out later instead of playing a power play on Suter and just straight buying him out. 

Which brings us to the area which wasn't discussed: the Expansion Draft. Let's just say that Suter had not been bought out and declined to waive (his right). Does Guerin then buy him out, or does he lose another defender? It was suggested that he could have lost Dumba, though, when you look at the defenders Francis liked, they were all tall and heavy. 

At this point, Guerin is new, and he's got to make these decisions without his guys in place. Judd would have been newly hired. I think it was pretty obvious that Dumba's game was deteriorating at the time, so I think I might have rolled the dice with that and kept Suter. But, Suter definitely was no longer worthy of the top pairing and needed to be moved down and had minutes diminished. Could Evason have humbled Suter? 

So, I do think DADN has some valid points here. 20/20 hindsight is great. Were they mistakes with a new GM? Or, when Guerin walked through the locker room, did he notice something that needed a quick swift change? All letter guys and substitute letter guys were gone within a year of each other. That's like cutting off the head of leadership. This part we will never truly know unless after Guerin is fired, he turns author. On that topic, let's look at where OCL comes from, Nashville. How long, exactly, did they keep David Poile as a GM? I think that is the mentality going on here too.

Justin, thanks for the article. In looking up the draft picks that Chicago took and LA took, for the draft capital they had, I would say the return wasn't very good. But when they hit, there were clusters.

If our guys from '20-22 hit, and if we trade Rossi, that might be moved to '21-23, I think we can have the same things happen. Chicago didn't just get top 5 1sts either. They were very frequent at picks 10-14 which weren't that good. The same guy who built the core of Chicago also built the core of Florida. After that, to get to relevance, both teams had to make savvy trades and signings. Chicago's was Marian Hossa. Weirdly, one of LA's was Gaborik. Florida's was Tkachuk, but don't diminish the cheap pickups of Bennett and Forsling. 

I think the main lesson to learn here is finding the right guys. Could Chisholm turn into our version of Forsling? Could our young core turn into a special young core? Do we have the right development and the right coaching staff? Coach Q was a big hire for Chicago, the right guy for that team. Drafting is more of a crap shoot, but trading for the right people where we see value others don't see should be the difference. 

For me, trading for Kreider or Marchement would have been no brainers. Each had trade protection. Was it from MN? Maybe Shooter's got different irons in the fire. Maybe guys like Voronkov or Marchenko are on his list? This is for sure, UFA this year isn't going to get this done, we're going to have to trade or pick up off waivers.