i was thinking would saginaw been better off staring as an expansion, yes you could argue that they maybe wouldnt have had guys like thorburn platt bissonette and whoever else, but we also wouldnt have costa and a mess of a franchise, i was looking at WHL stats and the new team in that league the Everett Silvertips who are expansion are having a pretty good year better than saginaw atleast, and league comparisons aside maybe saginaw would have done better with a clean slate.

You got it wrong in stating that this is "a mess of a franchise". The product on the ice is a great disappointment, but the franchise is very strong, in fact it is a key selling point when recruiting. Visit a few other team's rinks and you will see that this as professional an operation as there is at this level.

We had a discussion about this on the NOOF. The WHL is allowing the Everett team to have more overagers than the limit, which may have something to do with their early success.

The theory being that they want new expansion teams to do well and keep their fanbase.

If we were allowed to have 5 overagers last season, it may not have improved us to a great season, but it would have taken us from 11 wins to...oh, say 15 or 16 wins, especially if the two extra OAs were scorers.

The bottom line is that this team is not winning because it doesn't score enough. Six or seven players are performing well below expectations and account for 80 to 90 percent of the gap between this team's current goal output and the amount we should have.

If you want to blame Costa for that, then go ahead. I think it is a combination of things. The 1986 players that we are relying on right now came from a relatively shallow draft. The 1987s show promise and some of the 1988s I see out there are outstanding.

Other teams do not need to rely on their 1986s because they aren't in rebuilding mode.

Hopefully, in two years, the teams that rely on their 19 year olds will have to deal with the shallow 1986 class. Meanwhile, Saginaw who appears to rely on its 17 and 18 year olds more than others will have the deep 1987 and 1988 pool leading the way.

If you recall, Saginaw first tried to get an expansion team and was denied by the league. The only way Saginaw was going to get a team is buy relocating one here. While it doesn't look like we will make the playoffs this year, all is not lost. This is still a better team than we had last year and can only get better next year. A few good trades before the deadline this season can go a long ways towards getting this team back on track. Nobody ever said it would be easy. And we were told from day one that it would take 3-4 years to put a contender on the ice.

the first post somewhat illustrates how effective this team is managed.To add to that... one of their overagers is restricted to fighting and suspensions and can not contribute to the scoring or leadership that is expected from overagers.There is lack of scoring and certainly lack of managing a team.Costa in north bay kept on saying that the cents were in a building mode.Those words were echoed also in saginaw.When will they begin to build?You dont have to be a rocket scientist to know that whatever rebuilding means its not working!