We had it all

Trochek?

Honest question from an outsider. How much was Hextall, and how much was ownership saying he needed to make moves to win "now"? Then they get rid of him and get Dubas who seems to have been exactly what ownership wanted in going out and getting EK...and now it looks grim?

It’s the signing that everyone believes they would have done with hindsight being 20:20

Instead of resigning Malkin

It’s the signing a lot of us wanted that summer.

So Malkin is not on the team but somehow Jeff Cartee is?

Malkin walks as a UFA. Trochek is signed in his place. Carter either gets picked by Seattle or doesn’t get the dumb extension so he’s a UFA. Who knows, but I do know this team is a playoff team and wins at least one round.

Let's be real, do you really think this team is an improvement over what we have now?
Lafferty is a 4th liner at best, and both he and Blueger are seeing much less ice time in the playoffs. Marino's defense was much better last season than this one. Trocheck had 10 more points centering mostly Panarin and Lafreniere than Malkin had centering mostly Smith and an injured Rakell. Trocheck isn't coming close to 67 points with wingers like Malkin had for most of the season. Replacing Geno with Vince would be a downgrade.
The team's depth is still suspect, and in hindsight the only guys Hextall shipped out who I particularly think make the team better are McCann and Matheson.

Yeah idk, like i get it, but its sorta cherry picked, keeping the carter and letang extension but getting rid of the malkin’s, sure hes regressed but he certainly outplayed Trocheck the 1st year of each respective contract, this year yeah you definitely have a point with the quality of each’s linemates. Also can make an argument that if malkin gets moved to wing either last year or this coming year he will out produce him. Puusty probably out produces Lafferty in a full season, I’m taking eller over Blueger just for the pure fact they fill the same role and eller had better availability, neither is ideal for 3C but both are passable. the defence is definitely more stable, but imo if youre gonna take away malkin, then letangs contract needs to go too, hes good for his age for sure, but hes consistently injured (I know that’s not his fault) and hes gonna be consistently going down the ranks as a #1 Dman. I agree with you this team isn’t that much superior if at all, the biggest factors are keeping McCann and a more stable D core for the past 2 years.

I think the ownership and core had a lot to do with the Letang and Malkin contracts, which imo aren’t the problem with this team. I think the HUGE problem with Hextall was his “retool” of the Defense, getting rid of matheson and Marino for basically nothing, matheson being swapped for Poeling and petry is atrocious, and obviously the Marino trade being a disaster. Like yeah the team as a whole might still be teetering on a WC spot but like the future would look a lot better in terms of having a younger 2nd pair and more flexibility. The contracts and what felt like forced trades were terrible too, granlund for a 2nd was confusing, resigning carter obviously turned out awful, and its not like that carter contract was a legacy signing like malkin and letangs were. Just a hand few of wins vs a heap of absolute terrible moves and signings. So i guess it’s more of a pressure from the team and ownership wants to keep this team competitive, but the moves and signings made were just disasters.

how stupid would that be lol

Yep - it's torture to look at man. Could even remove Carter since he was singed by Hextall, correct? It would look even better with Malkin in there over Trocheck too.

That's probably impossible to answer - but the thing is I don't think Hextall actually made moves to "win now".

Outside of the Malkin/Trocheck swap - I do think it's a better team. If we're correcting Hextall's mistakes, then we can also remove Carter's contract too which would give like 7mil to add another forward to help with depth

Yeah, I know sometimes things slip through the media (leaks), and wasn't sure how much is hindsight or if ownership was really forcing his hand. I can't remember at the time why PIT felt they had to move Marino (if it was to pay someone else), and if those corresponding moves were the killers.

I'm honestly not so sure the defense would have been more stable.

Marino was pretty good his first season in NJ, but like I mentioned, his defense regressed heavily this season. Yeah, the Devils' goaltending was questionable this year, but he went from 2.05 goals against/60 last season to 3.35/60 this season. That's a gigantic drop, and goaltending is only going to be responsible for a part of it. He definitely was better than Petry in 22-23, but this season, he wasn't going to do us any favors.
And as great as Matheson's production has been in Montreal, he's also been worse defensively there, and missed nearly half of 22-23 with injuries. Again, part of his numbers being worse are simply from having tougher matchups as the #1 guy on a pretty bad team, but I'm still not sure that he'd be as good as he was in his final year in Pittsburgh had he stayed.

The difference with this roster for me is that accounting for Malkin's cap instead of Trocheck's, this team has a little over $5.5M to work with to add to the team. I still think it could use an upgrade on D or 3C, but the Pens would've had the space for it. Going for a reset to a couple years ago and then not adding on is as much of a solution as keeping the current roster the same is.

And I think that's where my criticisms mostly lie. We can make these ACGMs of "oh, what if Hextall didn't make mistakes" and they undo his bad moves instead of replacing them with good ones. In hindsight, we have the cap space to add to this team, and we'd still have our '24 1st to use for an upgrade if we didn't make the Karlsson deal. The team wouldn't necessarily be better if Hextall didn't screw everything up, but it would have the assets and cap to make additions and be decisively better.

True that happens - I get what you're saying. Honestly there might have been some leaks, and maybe I just missed it. I know there were rumors that Rutherford leaving was because he wanted to break up the core - but I don't remember there being anything released that said Hextall and ownership clashed at all. But again, there's definitely a possibility that I missed it. There's definitely going to be some hindsight involved - but I do feel like most, if not all, of the moves that Hextall is currently criticized for were also criticized back when they happened. And I do believe Hextall had the authority to make the moves he wanted to make - but maybe that's just my personal belief.

As for Marino I'm pretty sure your guess is correct. I think the only reason he was moved is because they traded Matheson for Petry. So he was basically a cap casualty at that point, one they caused themselves

That's fair. I think the point of these is just to show where we'd be without his bad moves - even if we didn't make any good follow up moves. It just gives us a rough picture of where we'd be. Undoing his bad moves, in a way, is like a good move too. It's probably difficult to go back and make new moves in the past ya know?

Plus maybe Hextall didn't have to make any moves at all, so they didn't need replaced. If he makes a bad trade, you don't necessarily need to change that trade to a good one, you could just not do the trade at all. If that makes sense haha.

I think the problem lies more with how they were moved, why, and what the returns were, lets face it neither the matheson and Marino moves were good, and even if we weren’t “technically” better we still would have more flexibility with younger still growing players compared to players that would be regressing. I think a more competent GM wouldve made much more meaningful moves with the same 2 players being traded out. The karlsson deal is ok in my eyes, and it wouldve never been made if it weren’t for the terrible moves that were made by hextall.

I think we have a misunderstanding. My comment was about the ACGM, not Hextall's poor decisions. I agree with basically everything you said except for the EK deal comment. That rocks simply in how many of Hextall's mistakes it undid, let alone that it added a player of EK's caliber.

I would agree, and it wouldve looked a lot better if the team around him could actually finish the chances he created. Anyways, my bad then lol.

Did you watch hockey this season? Because that is a pretty bad question if you did.

I didn’t use that space to add to the team because that’s not the point of what I’m doing. The point t of why I made this was to show how he made horrendous decisions that are unforgivable. The Marino trade was unforgivable. Letting McCann go was unforgivable. I know the Matheson trade had its defenders but I wasn’t among them. I’d rather have the Matheson Marino pairing right now than have EK. This team didn’t need EK. That’s obviously the work of the current regime but if Marino was still here we wouldn’t have had much of a reason to add EK. Likewise, if Hextall was never our GM the team is obviously very different right now. I can’t use the cap space to make this fiction come to life. The point was to demonstrate the awful hand Dubas received.