Quoting: Sonuvabirch69
You're right, people are pointing fingers. I never wanted Markstrom back in Vancouver because of the hefty price tag that he was going to get and for expansion insurance. I'm not mad that he left because we needed to ensure Demko's protection in the expansion draft. Same with Tanev, though I wish we could have signed him to help us. What pissed me off was that we didn't sign Toffoli after that trade just months after he was signed. All I know is that someone is gonna get canned at some point. The Hughes-Benn seems to have worked pretty well from what I've seen, but I haven't been watching the games as much lately, just listening to them on the radio and I can understand the struggles.
I can say for one thing that Toffoli's impact on the team would be marginal. He wasn't a stand out player when he was here for all but maybe 2 games. It sucks that we lost him after so short, but nobody knew how the scene of the world would change. A risen cap and 20 more games in the season and a different narrative would be present. Gotta take the L here for the future and move on.
If toffoli didn't score a metric ton of goals against us, nobody would be saying anything. Toffoli will die off with time; he's not a goal per game player.
The issues are on the back end. People are not buying into the system - they are out of position; sloppy on the puck and all around slow. You'd expect a so-called improved defense to be BETTER than last year. Benning got them a true top pair defenseman, and now Schmidt looks like one of the worst players out there.
The chemistry is atrocious. Green needs to do whatever possible to get that back end engaged and committed.
Also; Why is Chatfield constantly in rather than Juolevi - Green.... really...
Essentially, even if we had Toffoli instead of Virtanen right now, this team would still be losing due to how bad the back end has been.