Joined: Sep. 2020
Posts: 5,588
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If you wan't to make Detroit a contender you need to develop our prospects, that starts with signing them and giving them a good environment in Grand Rapids to improve.
Söderblom, Niederbach, Cotton, Eliasson, Kivenmäki, Mastrosimone, Tuomisto, Edvinsson, Viro, Johansson are all players that should be in GR next season along with a few veterans to mentor them such as Lashoff and Rowney. Next summer you bring in Wallinder, Buium, Grewe, Gylander, Phillips, Plandowski, Zito.
Then fix the LD in such a way as to give time for the kids to develop before throwing them in at the deep end. Get a rock solid defensive defender to play with Hronek (that isn't Martinez, he's an offensive defender and would be a disaster with Filip), someone like Marcus Pettersson. Get another offensive defender to run our PP2 like Martinez or Schmidt. Keep two of Oesterle, Walman, Juolevi to be #6 and 7.
Get a bona fide 2C that is young enough to be stay his contract time with the team, like Copp.
Be opportunistic and snipe if really interesting players become available either via trade or unqualified RFA or offersheets. Players like Kapanen, Liljegren and the like.
Then just wait for a few years until our kids grow up, keep drafting the same way as the last few years and we'll soon have a dynasty team in the making.