Quote:
Originally Posted by Caged Great
There are about 7 good forwards in this draft, and only 2 or 3 good d-men (Other than Ekblad, the forwards are all better than the remaining D). If we pick outside the top 4 (or wherever Ekblad gets picked) then we should draft a forward. I would then focus more on defense perhaps through the rest of the draft, unless there was a significantly better forward up at the time.
We could focus on either acquiring some support in the defense corp through free agency or trade. There are guys like Boyle, Markov, Timonen, Zidlicky, Orpik, Mitchell, Tallinder, Girardi, Robidas, Ericsson are free agents at the end of the year. We could sign one or two and have a decent team. Unfortunately, young defense will be an issue for a while, but you can add stop gaps like some of those above while hoping guys like Brodie, Sieloff and Wotherspoon take off and emerge as quality defenders long term. It's also not necessarily a bad thing to have veterans on the defense corp when you have a young team.
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McKeown and Fleury are the next two dmen after Ekblad and Brycen Martin is the next highest ranked dman after that. It is fluid after that but if things hold agree that we are looking at a F. Maybe we should pull an Islanders and draft all d after our first and hope one of them turns out *sarcasm intended *
UFA market - don't see it happening. We aren't a preferred destination given that we are going through a rebuild. Might be able to get a vet who is dollar driven and/or isn't getting offers from contenders.