RealGM

Well it’s been a tough start... our players are questioning Collitons system (Keith / Toews / Seabrook), we’ve had very noticeable declines in our veterans, and we are to a man just plain slower and less engaged than most every other team league wide.

We have also not so subtly started the youth movement; Dach, Boqvist, and Nylander are all here to stay and Gustafson / Seabs have been healthy scratches.

And maybe the #1 takeaway from the first dozen games; Crawford has been very bad and often lacking in positional awareness whereas Lehner is proving to be a top 10 goalie in this league.

So what to do?

1. Trade Gustafson to a mid tier team that needs an offensive dman on a PP unit.... and hope to get a 2nd rd pick but to this point most likely a 3rd rd pick.

2. Keep Saad and Nylander with Toews and live and fail with an all out Cat-Strome-Kane line.

3. Start 2/3 games with Lehner and never look back.

4. Try like heck to tempt teams with Seabrook deal combined with assets like 2nd/3rd rders with Dylan Sikura / Caggulia / Chad Krys attached - but most likely a team would want something like Seabrook / Sikura / Kurashev / 2nd for their bad contract guy in the 2-3 year left range and a low pick deal.... and u know what I’d do that deal.

Our future is now, the big name prospects are up.... DeBrincat is locked up now.... Nylander is playing really well... so it’s buy in or so long time for the vets.

I'd also like to add that if the Hawks were do a true implosion e.i. trade Kane (Sabres / VGK / Rangers etc) then this would be the year to do it. Most casual hockey fans saw this last draft as one of the better ones recently and that would not be wrong! I'd say 1-18 had immense top 6 / pairing prospects aplenty... was there much separation between 3 and 18, not even a little. I could argue you right now that Peyton Krebs will be a better pro than Turcotte and that Boldy may be the better all around player than Dachshund will be... the margin is nil right now.

2020 draft however to me has a repeat of the famed Ovi / Malkin draft. Alexis Lafrenire is very Ovi like and Quentin Byfield is extremely like Malkin at the same stages. Then the total wild card is Russian goalie Yaroslav Askarov. This goalie in. Out drafts would go 1st and is easily in the Carey Price / Fleury discussion at age 17. The top 3 is already set, but then I see another 5-6 guys that you can really bank on to be top tier NHL players: Lucas Raymond, Justin Barron, Hendrix Lapierre, Tim Stutzle, Ty Smilanic.... then some rough cut diamonds like Drysdale, Rossi, Holtz, Perfetti, Perreault, Sanderson, and Holloway... That's 15 guys I think right now at ages 17 are going to be NHLers.... so like I said if there was a draft to implode for its this one.

Currently Detriot, San Jose, Minnesota 3 worst points / Hawks 7th