Can't say I agree with the premise of the article. Spending money for the sake of spending is ridiculous. Winnipeg was smart to stay out of the initial contract frenzy. This team is far from playoff bound and will benefit from smart, value signings while the young kids mature. Also, Dudley and Ramsey were far from making this team a playoff contender, so keeping them just for their NHL experience is a little odd. Dudley might have been well respected, but his experience as a GM amounted to 1 NHL season - which kind of contradicts the author's argument. Ramsay was a head coach for a total of 131 NHL games, again not exactly what I would call vastly experienced when compared to Noel.
So far I like what Chevy has done as GM, but I'll take the wait-and-see approach with Noel. But if we think that NHL experience was all that mattered, Guy Boucher proved a few people wrong in Tampa.
And by the way, saying all the best free agents have been picked off may be relatively true in regards of talent, but it's categorically untrue in regards to value. Many of those signings were to extremely high dollar values, which makes absolutely no sense to a fringe playoff team looking to add long-term value to it's roster.
