Quoting: MisstheWhalers
Then trade for a guy with some term.
Also they really handled this whole issue so very poorly, they get a 2C cause Little and Laine have no chemistry together but then they put Laine on the top line and find out Laine is fine there. Little has always played very well with and has great chemistry with Ehlers and Connor and they'd make a great 2nd line.
It's really too bad, they wasted a 1st round pick and a good young player(Lemieux) for a rental they didn't need all because the coach was reluctant to try Laine on the top line, so dumb.
The Jets player/asset management has been really bad the last two seasons.
To say the Jets “player/asset management has been really bad the last two seasons” is quite the stretch. Lemieux while a decent young player was never going to be a Top 6 forward and is questionable to be long term productive 3rd liner. He’s a 4th liner. Erik Foley, who they traded last year for Paul Stastny, decent prospect but has been out with a concussion all year. He too has question in terms of his potential. 3rd line player at best?? The 1st rounders given up are the price of doing business to acquire talents to solidly your lineup for the playoffs when teams like the Jets have a legitimate chance of winning the cup.
Your argument that they didn’t need a rental because you could have just moved Laine up and everything would have been just fine is ridiculous, depth matters. God forbid Scheifele or Little would have went down. What do you do? Is roslovic really the #2 Centre you want in the playoffs going up against Nashville or St. Louis? Surely you wouldn’t want Wheeler coming off the wing to centre the line when he and Scheifele are arguably a top 5 duo in the league and then mix in an elite scorer in Patrik Laine to top it all off. DEPTH MATTERS! Hayes gives the Jets so many more options. The team now has 3 top 2 Centres to go along with Roslovic, Lowry, Copp, Perreault, Lindholm, Hendricks who all can play Centre The point being is that with those 3 guys you have top 6 options that at the price of a mid level prospect and a draft choice allows you to compete for a cup.
And a final point, the jets did acquire this depth without having to give up Vesalainen, Roslovic, Appleton, Niku, Stanley, Samberg, Gwanke, Comrie or Berdin who are their best prospects. So calling it reall bad player/asset management is ridiculous.