When looking at this debate, you probably could pick 6 or 7 guys that you could say, without them, the Hawks wouldn't have won 3 cups.

A debate that can never be proven, but i think its true, and just goes to show how difficult it really is to A. win a cup, and B. build a cup winner.

Not going to defend Stan and I'm happy with the current direction, but everyone who just dismisses his accomplishments in winning 3 cups as the GM are mistaken.

You can certainly point out post 2015 and the terrible job he did, and that is deserved, though I'll always maintain that Stan left to his own accord would have continued down the rebuild path, and he was forced by McD to switch gears.

Did McD know the Beach stuff was going to hit and wanted a winning team at the time to distract from it, knowing that if they had a rebuilding season or two like we've had now it would all come crashing down???

Interesting that everyone who was suspended has now been reinstated, except 1..............
- vabeachbear

C; win another cup

I think the Pens GM felt like you do by trading for Karlsson. It backfired. I think Tanev is a bad signing cause he's old, 5 years ago it would of been a good signing.

It's a bonus if a defender can be dangerous offensively, one of my favorite defenders during the cup years was Rozy, for a big strong man he had soft hands and could feather pucks to teammates to exit the zone. I do agree with you about how we could be dangerous I'll even add, Vlasic, KK and Levshunov all have the skating ability to be an option of exiting the zone adds another dimension that will make it difficult on opponents. Then you draft forwards with excellent speed to stretch the defense, i have to admit I'm very enthusiastic of what's going on in Chicago.
- BetweenTheDots

Yeah man. Good point on Rozy. He could make a very good first pass out of the zone.

Either way it shouldn't suck to watch them every night which will be a lot of fun.