This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.

Sandy • It took maybe 24 hours — perhaps 36 — shoot, possibly even a beer or two squeezed in within that timeframe for Garth Lagerwey to try and process the 5-0 elimination loss Sunday at the StubHub Center. There ain't much of a choice at this point for anyone at Real Salt Lake, let alone its soon-to-be-out-of-contract general manager.

The four-year extension penned with RSL back in 2011 is scheduled to run dry on Dec. 31, leaving his long-term future up in the air. But in the final media availability of 2014 held Wednesday afternoon in Sandy, the outside chatter and massive looming decision didn't seem to faze Lagerwey. The previous 48 hours, he'd spent locked in a room planning an offseason with the coaching staff and meeting with players during exit interviews.

He anticipates meeting with RSL owner Dell Loy Hansen sometime this week or next week to discuss his possible future with the club.

"There's no rush. I'm in no hurry, I don't think they are," Lagerwey said. "We have a number of weeks. I'm totally committed to the offseason. There's a ton of work to do and I'm going to keep doing it and I'm going to keep helping the coaching staff and helping this franchise as long as I can."

Is returning to RSL a main priority?

"We'll sit down with ownership. I don't think it's fair to characterize anything until I sit down with Mr. Hansen and pay him the respect of sitting down eye-to-eye and hearing him out and seeing what he has to say. I think when you get that information, it'll be much easier to make a decision."

So the Lagerwey stays-or-goes narrative remains very much with an active pulse. Possibly more daunting in the short term is how much work he, coach Jeff Cassar and the RSL coaching staff have in front of them within the next six weeks. The group spent nearly 10 hours together Tuesday to assess player performance, review the 2014 season and figure out a plan of action heading into the storm that is an MLS offseason.

RSL faces its fifth MLS Expansion Draft under Lagerwey on Dec. 10, when Jason Kreis' New York City FC as well as Orlando City continue piecing together their rosters for each club's inaugural season in MLS in 2015. Lagerwey didn't toy with his words: He expects RSL players to go No. 1 and No. 2 overall in the Expansion Draft. Which makes the club's protected list of 11 untouchable players — submitted on Monday, Dec. 8 — that much more intriguing.

"I think we will lose players with absolutely certainty and so when you ask if there's going to be change? There's going to be change," he said. "We need to embrace it and I think I've done five Expansion Drafts and I still haven't figured out how to make your team better while losing one or more starters, so I guarantee you we will get worse on Dec. 10."

That's just the start. Chivas USA's Dispersal Draft is Nov. 19. Whether RSL decides to pick a player as lottery spots have yet to be announced remains unknown. Then there's the look at the overall roster construction and the return to the burning question surrounding Rio Tinto Stadium the last few seasons: Does this aging core indeed have another run?

"I think that if you go all young, you're going to fail and I think if you stay all old, you're going to fail," Lagerwey said.

"I would say that if the fork is grind out one get-in-by-the-skin-of-your-teeth playoff season more with all the veterans? I'd prefer to take Path B and reload and take some risks with some younger players and try to give ourselves a chance to compete for a championship, because I think it's going to get us there sooner than Path A will, even if it keeps everyone employed by making the playoffs," Lagerwey later explained.

RSL staples Nat Borchers and Chris Wingert, together part of RSL's back line since 2008, are out of contract. Midfielder Cole Grossman and defender Abdoulie Mansally are as well. The club has until Dec. 1 to re-sign any of the four players as well as exercising team options on every other player currently on the roster. Lagerwey said he and the staff gave players as much information as possible in Wednesday's year-review 1-on-1 meetings. In some cases, the club was able to definitively say yes, on others definitively no. Lagerwey said the team options that will eventually be exercised before Dec. 1 will be obvious. For those who aren't brought back (Lagerwey not surprisingly declined to specify who), he said the focus will be on making trades to clubs for those players to progress their careers while simultaneously looking for value or trade assets for RSL.

"I think you're going to make more changes to the roster just because we did almost nothing on the roster last year — we really aimed for stability above all else, to try to give ourselves the best chance this year," Lagerwey said. "I think that strategic was proved correct over the course of the season. I think this is an offseason perhaps closer to 2012, where in common the ending wasn't great, wasn't what we wanted. But we feel like we have a good team. By no means do we feel like radical change or wholesale change is needed."

The coaching staff has already dispersed. RSL will be scouting around the country as various NCAA conference tournaments start this weekend. Assistant coach Daryl Shore left Tuesday, while fellow assistant Craig Waibel left Wednesday. By Friday, every RSL coach and scout will be spread out across the country scouting.

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Offseason queries

Tony Beltran's MLS Cup final prediction: L.A. Galaxy over New England Revolution.

Javier Morales' MLS Cup final prediction: Doesn't have one. The 34-year-old midfielder said he's looking forward to spending much of the offseason home in Argentina.

Take this with a grain of salt: Cassar said he's had one real vacation in his lifetime, a trip to Hawaii two years ago. The plan this winter is to trek to Playa del Carmen in Mexico for some time off. Earlier this year, Cassar and I discussed how he'd been to Brazil three times. On Wednesday, he clarified each trip was soccer-related. Yeah.

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This is Part 1 of what I expect to be more posts with details from information and insight obtained Wednesday evening. Upcoming will be Cassar discussing the success and rigors of Year 1 as a head coach in MLS.

-Chris Kamrani

Twitter: @chriskamrani