The idea for this blog post came the way many of them have: A general manager corrected an assumption I made about his team. I’d made the assumption that his team was one of the older ones in the league. There are veterans, he agreed, but then argued that when assessing the age of the team, it’s really only important to look at the core. The rest of the roster can be reworked fairly easily.

We then took a lap around the league. Nashville, he pointed out, is set up for the future better than people realize. So is St. Louis.