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So in other words. Every time a professional sports team, or any team for that matter brings in an outside player not in their team's current system, it is disruptive to their team building plans, got it.
Well, no. Bringing in a player during the off-season doesn't disrupt a plan already in place because the off-season is when teams start formulating their ideas and looking for holes to fill. Bringing in someone like Enroth didn't change their plan because clearly their plan was to acquire a back-up goalie via free agency. A team can, on its own, decide to pursue the best available back-up goalie in the off-season. You can't game plan around a specific player being made available on waivers.
Right now, the Leafs have to formulate a plan based on the idea that Yakupov isn't available. That plan is in place. Bringing him in
would change things. That is incontrovertibly true.
But, again, change isn't necessarily a positive or negative thing. Like I said, "disrupting the plans" was one of three connected reasons. If you were bringing in someone demonstrably better than the options they already had, that disruption would be less of a concern. As is, part of my rationale for why I wouldn't claim him is that he doesn't present enough of an upgrade to shake things up.