I'm aware they were "trending down" but the point of this league is to win championships, not trend anything. It's not really that hot of a take. The year before the lightning won the cup they were bounced by the blue jackets (fixed typo from phone). A couple of years before that they didn't even make the playoffs I believe.
I'm not going to change my mind because two seasons from now we win our division. We weren't that far removed from a finals appearance, already had Ziby, Miller, Sheshterkin in the system, 26 year old kreider, Hayes, Buchnevich, ADA, 28 year old McD, Chytil, Pionk......
It wasn't a team of aging guys. It had a decent mix. I'm not even saying to not trade Nash because he was done. I'm saying it wasn't a team that needed a tear down. New coach and a retool would have been fine to make another cup run.