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I think Yzerman is still building this "particularly deep" lineup. Add Danielson and ASP and Cossa and Augustine and Mazur and and and... Since SY has taken over the plan was never to build around Larkin. Larkin (if he's still around) will be the old man on the Cup team. Just like Yzerman was. The actual core of the team started with Seider. I think @Jimmybigrigs69said the exact same thing years ago. The Red Wings didn't win diddly squat when Yzerman was their best player. They started winning when Lidstrom and Fedorov were their best players. Florida won a President's Trophy BEFORE they traded for Tkachuk. Yzerman is building a team of work horses and then he's (hoping) to go get a superstar or two to put them over the top. And it's not like his track record on this has been bad. His workhorses keep exceeding expectations. He's accomplishing the mission. I think you could argue that it's the periphery moves that are killing the momentum. For example, we drafted TWO absolute units on defense and they're were/are both playing out of their minds at an EXTREMELY early part of their careers. Things couldn't have gone better with Seider and Edvinsson and our defense still blows because we've surrounded them with puds. And it's not like we just couldn't land better talent. We ALREADY HAD IT. Swap Walman, Gostisbehere, and Maatta for Gustafsson, Petry, and Holl and your defense isn't a total nightmare. Keep one of Sprong or Fabbri instead of Motte and maybe our even strength scoring isn't absolutely abysmal. Swap Perron for Tarasenko and your team has a pulse... ...then add the Edvinsson, Kasper, Johansson, Sodorblom that we saw this season and you're looking at a much better team. Maybe not a contender, but a playoff team for sure. And you keep building from there. Nobody can blame this season on "too many kids, not enough experience". Our pro scouting has absolutely f*cked this team for two seasons in a row. Combined with the fact that Lalonde (and the organization as whole) has a default preference for milktoast puds who "defend well" over dynamic players who bring a number of other elements to the table. They justified Motte's roster spot because of his PK "prowess" and our PK is historically bad. Gustafson was supposed to be a cheaper, more defensively responsible, version of Ghost. In reality he's barely cheaper and no better defensively, but MUCH worse offensively. Tarasenko costs more, and scores less than any of Fabbri, Perron, or Sprong. There's no problem with Yzerman's plan (build around HIS draft picks). That's actually going really really well. The problem is that no team is built entirely of their own draft picks. And when SY and the gang flesh out the rest of the roster they routinely shoot themselves in the foot.

My point is we don't pop in either of the senses you're describing; we don't have 5,000-point scorers and we're not particularly deep. In a perfect world, we're Florida and we just run over everyone because we have no holes and our big guns kill and we forecheck like our lives depend on it. But teams like that are rare. My "realistic" hope is we become a team that's a pain in the ass to play against because every player is good and pulls his weight. But this is two straight seasons now that our personnel has wilted when the intensity ramped up and the stakes got real. A serious team doesn't drop both of those Columbus games. So, we can talk about Brayden Point...but do we have a lot of Brayden Points? Do we have any? Do we have x factors? Do we have the ingredients we need to become a team that gets it done in [insert any way you want]? To be fair, this is fan fatigue and frustration talking; I'm not being super-objective. But I look across the table at the super-objective crowd and it's just stats nerds and podcast bros (but I repeat myself) who will spend this summer writing Athletic pieces about how Yzerman needs to weaponize our cap space and take on some bad contracts in exchange for second-round picks, because that's how you build a winner. It's not all bad. Like I said, we do have good pieces. Edvinsson could end up being better than Seider; that's how good a rookie season he just had, imo. Kasper's a breath of fresh air. DeBrincat silenced his critics this season; he was great. Raymond's just getting started. ASP could be a gamechanger, or at least a really good complement to Seider and Edvinsson. (Maybe.) But is this going to be enough? Have we planted the seeds of perennial contention? Is time the only thing that separates us from glory? Or do we just have a lot of nice pieces and are we all going to feel quite silly if Carter Mazur's career is over before it even began? These are the questions that should be keeping Yzerman up at night.

I don't agree with your conclusions. Recent history has shown that deep teams, with more top end talent throughout their lineup, are better than teams that have elite top end talent but not as much depth. I can't imagine too many GMs would rather be Edmonton than Florida despite the fact that the Oilers have the better "difference makers". Contrary to what most people think, I don't believe we need those pad the stats guys. We need guys that will allow Seider to go from 45 points to 65 (think Duncan Keith) points and still be a rock defensively. We need the guy who eats some defensive zone starts so Larkin can stay healthy and score 95 points. Same with Raymond. We haven't had those guys because we've've lacked qualtiy depth forever. So our top end guys get keyed on. Depth changes that. If Marco Kasper can eat those "Anthony Cirelli" type minutes, then Larkin gets to play "Brayden Point" type minutes. Same with Raymond and Seider. Those guys stand to gain a lot when they're not eating the best the opposition can throw at them for 20 mins a night.

Well, the plan is to wait for the kids to magically turn us into a contender. Which sounds nice, but I'm not seeing it. I mean, I like the pieces. Don't get me wrong. Raymond could be a 100-point player in his prime. But if we're being brutally objective, it's looking like all Yzerman's really assembled is the bare minimum core you'd expect from a non-elite playoff team. We have a good 1C. We have a good 1D. We have a couple good scoring wingers. Edvinsson's good. Kasper's good. But if ASP isn't an absolute monster or Cossa isn't Carey Price...then I don't know what makes us special. So, yeah: mushy middle.