Quote:
Originally Posted by Phanuthier
Besides Chara (and maybe Boyle) who was available?
That lineup is pretty bad because Phaneuf was playing sheltered minutes, so Leopold-Warraner (or Leopold-Sarich) is our top pairing D - thats pretty ugly.
Also - trying to remember timelines of the deal, but if you make the deal for Thornton (Regehr/Kobasew/??) then you don't make the deal for Tanguay or Langkow. So, which line looks better?
Tanguay/Huselius - Langkow/Conroy - Iginla
Regehr-Aucoin
or
Huselius/Moss - Thornton - Iginla
Leopold-Aucoin
???
Not really that straight forward of an answer.
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Langkow was already be here. You're right, Tanguay would've likely not been acquired. Huselius may have still been acquired, can't remember if it was before or after the Thornton trade. Conroy and Aucoin weren't on the team. Acquiring a guy like Thornton would've altered the subsequent transactions so it's not even worth going into. My point is I would get that true #1 center and worry about the other stuff later. Build the foundation for the house before you build the kitchen and bathroom.
And I disagree that the defense would've been ugly, it would be average at best but teams have made the playoffs with worse. Teams don't win in the playoffs without a true #1 center though, so that absolutely would've been my priority. After that I would focus on defense, which might have taken a season or two to improve to contender status, but if that's the price for acquiring Thornton, I would've gladly paid it.