Sounds more and more like the Bolts are just going to disqualify him for the year, which means he'll have two years left on his ELC when they try to trade him this summer. Bold strategy, Yzerman, let's see if it pays off.
More and more I'm thinking they never should have drafted Drouin in the first place. 2013 was a weird season for the Lightning: Guy Boucher, who, if you recall, was Steve Yzerman's hand-picked genius before Jon Cooper was Steve Yzerman's hand-picked genius, was running that 1-3-1 zone defense that no one could reckon with until, well, they could, I guess, and the team ended up having a terrible year and drafting way too high for where the rest of the organization was. Remember that the team was purchased three years and change prior for the low low price of $90MM, which was really about buying the master lease to the Ice Palace and the rights to the adjoining undeveloped real estate -- they effectively threw in the hockey team for free.
So basically from that point, ownership and new management had been building this whole thing from the ground up, had gotten pretty far in the process, and really didn't need to pick third. With the organizational philosophy, ported over from the Red Wings, of scouring the globe for diamonds in the rough and then making them grow up together through the farm system until they were well past ready, there really wasn't the right culture for an impact player to come in straight from the Q and get the star treatment the way Stamkos, Tavares, Landeskog, KANER, et al all had. Add on top of that the murmurs of scouts that Drouin just got fat off MacKinnon (personally, I never bought this; MacKinnon himself doesn't even seem that great anymore), and it was an especially weird move. I'm not saying they should have traded #3 for thirty seventh-round picks like some caricature of Ken Holland -- lost in all the worship of Tampa, Chicago, and Big Daddy Detroit plumbing the 7th/NCAA for unheralded talent is that the Sharks have been doing the same thing for years but all they wind up with is shit -- but a player of his status and personality was a terrible fit for the Lightning. There definitely should have been some trading down. Imagine if Edmonton traded up to get Seth Jones. Hell, imagine if Tampa Bay got Seth Jones.
_________________ Molly Lambert wrote: The future holds the possibility to be great or terrible, and since it has not yet occurred it remains simultaneously both.
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