Quote:
Originally Posted by Vulcan
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It only has to be a longer term consideration. Consider where the young players will likely end up weight wise, increase the size of the bottom six (largely accomplished already), and suddenly we are average, even with Johnny Hockey on the team.
Our opening day lineup last year was something like this. Cervenka (201) and Hudler (184) were both not included.
Cammalleri(185), Tanguay(194), Iginla(210)
Stempniak(196), Glencross(197), Backlund(198)
Stajan(190), Comeau (195), Baertchi (181)
Horak(170), Jackman (225), Jones (216)
Average (forwards): 196.4
Top 6: 196.7
Bottom 6: 196.2
This year, my projected starting lineup is something like this (grouped by top 6 and bottom 6, but there could be some transfer obviously)
Cammalleri (184) - Backlund (198) - Hudler (184)
Baertchi (190) - Monahan (190) - Jones (210)
Glencross (197) - Knight (200) - Stempniak (196)
Galiardi (210) - Stajan(190) - Jackman (225)
Average(forwards): 197.8
Top 6: 192.6
Bottom 6: 203
As you can see, our bottom six is considerably larger this year, while our top 6 is a bit lighter due to the promotion of young guys.
If everything stays the same except that Camalleri is subtracted and 168lb Gaudreau (his target for spring) is added, the team average would still be 196.4lb, exactly the same as last year.
That's with 3 of the top 6 still having room to put on another 10lbs average (about 17 for Monahan (207), 5 for Baertchi (195), 8 for Gaudreau (176)). If these players can reach this kind of weight, the top 6, while not huge, is also no longer tiny.
More concerning than our top 6 forward size, is the size of our defense.