Re: The Great Jim Benning Debate!
Posted: Tue Feb 07, 2017 10:57 am
Thus my smiley about Buffalo having to settle for Eichel and the Jets having to settle for LaineIsland Nucklehead wrote:Would the Leaves be much worse off with Laine? It's been said countless times that it's not about finishing dead last and trying to lose, it's about stockpiling assets for the future. That the team is terrible just naturally leads to a higher draft position, but as important are the extra 2nd/3rd/4th round picks. If we'd been following this strategy, we might not have a Sutter or a Gudbranson (oh no!) but we'd have 8-10 more prospects in the system right now. Having those assets already in the organization comes in handy when you finally do get your McDavid/Matthews/Laine at the draft.Hockey Widow wrote:Well the leaves only came clean when they hired the cock. Up until then they played the same game we did. Not many teams go about it, the deliberate tank. And it really only works when those superstar, generational type players are available. Edmonton finally got lucky with McJesus, Buffalo had to settle for Eichel. Toronto got lucky that we won three against the SoCal teams or we would have had Matthews, Winnipeg had to settle for Laine. I mean think about how close it was. If we lose those three games, which we should havethen we finish last:
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With our current mandate, the coach is forced to minimize mistakes, which lesses the amount of leash available to the younger players, further pissing off the fans that want some excitement. If Benning and co. were honest and said we were going to be a boring-ass hockey team with no margin for error, that needs to rely on luck and on goaltending to maybe win enough games to be within a sniff of the playoffs, you'd be hard pressed to find many folks signing up for tickets. Yet that's what we have.