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He won my trust the moment he drafted Seider. I shouldn't complain.

You're such a size queen.

Just figure out what everyone else is doing and do the opposite. Then wait for your alpha badge in the mail.

Trading Saaarijarvi (very low end prospect) and DLR (career 4th liner) was one thing. But moving picks, Regulas, and Kaski's has me boggled on wtf he was thinking. Firstly, trading picks and viable prospects runs counter to a rebuild. I give him more benefit of the doubt on Erne cause it was an offseason trade, but with Perlini did he honestly think this player was gonna alter the direction of the team even if he did workout?? Its seems like a pressured panic move. With Kaski, Todd Nelson wasn't playing him, so I get it. Go get a player your coach actually wants to play. But then Kaski lights it up with the checkers the moment he's given ice time. Sure seems like Yzerman let Nelson's opinion supersede his own on the player. It's an indication that not only Todd Nelson might not know exactly what he's doing, but Yzerman also then put his stamp on it. If Yzerman is the smart man I think he may be, he will finish the cleaning of the house he started. Fire Todd Nelson. Fire Jeff Blashill. Fire whatever scout that said anything nice about Pelini, and fire the core. Start over, there's no repercussions for starting over at the bottom. The more pain we endure now the more gain we get later.

I think both.

I think Zadina has the potential to be better than Oshie/Tatar/Nyquist/Hudler. I don't think that's a stretch at this point in time. I know you're not crazy about his game, and I respect that, but, for me, there's a lot to like. I think he can be elite(ish). Yes, Hughes is looking like he would've been the smarter pick. But time will tell. Beyond Hughes, no 2018 hidden gems have emerged: https://www.hockeydb.com/ihdb/draft/nhl2018e.html We're in agreement about Zadina likely not being That Guy We Need; he's likely not going to be Pastrnak or Kucherov. ...Though, to be fair, Pastrnak and Kucherov have played with best-of-the-best players for most (all?) of their respective NHL careers, which has undoubtedly boosted them. In any case, I don't really hold anything against Zadina. He can only be the player he is. It's on the brain trust to fill the holes that need to be filled. I agree that the top priority has to be finding A Legit Superstar and that wanking ourselves off to our current "core" is starting to feel kinda stupid. We have sort of a "core by default," i.e. they're the best we've got, so we imbue them with importance and potential that maybe they haven't quite earned. But, as with Zadina, I don't really hold our situation against them. Hot take: Larkin is Toews without the Kane & Keith boost. Even with the Kane & Keith boost, Toews has cracked 70 points only twice in his career (76 in 2010-11, 81 in 2018-19). He's never hit 85 points. People can point to Toews's two-way play, which is fair, but I'd argue Larkin's underlying numbers point to him being a future Selke guy. People can point to Toews's intangible leadership qualities, but we all know he's a big baby. Ryan O'Reilly's never put up big numbers, but damn if he hasn't established himself as one of the most valuable players in the league. I think Larkin can become the player O'Reilly is today -- but even if he does, Yzerman needs to be winning lots of picks and trades and free agent signings for us to have a team like the 2019 Blues within the next three years. I don't really understand the "crutch" argument. Would you really have Yzerman trade our best young roster guys? If we do that, we could be gutting organizational depth that we've built up over years. Having Lafreniere and no supporting cast isn't much/any better than having a lot of good-not-great guys who lack a superstar leader. I think Yzerman has it right: We have some good young pieces, but it's not enough, and so we need to add, and we need a bunch of those adds to be big wins. I don't see why that has to take 10 years. These days, Cup-winners are generally driven by players in their late 20s and early 30s. I'd like to see us winning some playoff games by the time Larkin is 27ish, which would be three or four years from now. I think that's a reasonable timeline.