Hire a good coach, you cant go into the offseason without that in place. You need a coaching staff aligned with your offseason moves.
Imo - Carle from denver pioneers. Good with dmen, good with young talent.
Get rid of any dead weight identified by new coaching staff asap. Especially ones from a lockerroom perspective. See nashville. Buy out, retention, doesnt matter.
- get rid of gudbranson. Hes only taking spot of jirechek, who can play in the bottom pairing to start.
Dont spend big in UFA, go for undervalued vets who can fit your playstylen and not bad in the locker room.
- barabanov?
Carle would be interesting.
Gudbranson actually just had a career season, I'd say he was #4/#5 caliber even. Jiricek is not nearly ready to surpass that.
The biggest development problem in Columbus, in my opinion, is elevating players before they're ready. We keep putting these players in the lineup way too early. Jiricek shouldn't sniff the NHL for another year.
Hire a good coach
Bite the bullet and overpay to get rid of Laine
Sign some UFA veterans with good character
I think Laine's issues are a distraction and he needs to go - we often hear that the club needs to put him in a position to succeed, but the club actually needs to put its younger players in that position, it's not a good fit.
But there shouldn't be much need to overpay to move Laine. He scored 108 pts in 111 games before this year and has become a terrific backchecking presence. If he's excited to come back then a club would make a better bet with him rather than paying long term to someone in UFA. That sounds like a savvy Carolina type of move.
Step 1) Trade Elvis, Provorov, Sillinger and Johnson
Johnson for 10-15 pick
Sillinger for a late 1st + something small
Provorov for a 2nd
Elvis + 2nd for anything with a pulse.
Elvis aside, all of those are terrible value. They can get more for all of them.
1. Start a bidding war for Boone Jenner where the return exceeds multiple 1st rounders in terms of perceived value. Picks, prospects and younger players are all acceptable pieces. He's not going to be in his prime once the team starts turning the corner and his value may never be at a higher point. Replace him with Elias Lindholm in UFA.
I'm hearing on HF occasionally that Lindholm isn't the most dedicated athlete. If that's the case I'd actually sooner bet on Jenner aging well given how he trains, how much he's actually improved in recent years. I don't know if that's true about Lindholm though.
3. Hold all 'negative value' assets and let them play. Only move them when there's a team willing to give you value. That means keeping Merzlikins, Laine and Gudbranson.
There is a big difference for Columbus between guys who are overpaid but good fits (Gudbranson) and guys who are bad in the room (Elvis) or are big distractions (Laine). There is gobs of cap space to retain and move the latter two if necessary (I don't think it will be even needed to move Laine), while the Gudbranson type should be kept regardless. The team isn't short on cap to keep players that are good fits, but they do need to fix up the room and the veteran leadership.