[Caged Great]

With how both Nakladal and Wotherspoon are playing, I'm not sure I want either Wideman or Russell back in the lineup period.

I was expecting team would have to make do with those guys until legit replacements could be found in July. Who knew that they would play at a level that's actually greater than the two vets play thus far this season. My own eye test agrees with that and the fancy stats back it up and I seldom use the fancy stats for any argument.

With the defenders, the worst corsi #'s on the team belong to Russell with Wideman and Engelland being about the same and Smid less bad, but still negative. Hamilton is barely positive, which is impressive due to his playing with bad defensemen and Nakladal/Spoon/Gio/Brodie are all very much in the positive. The two new guys are being sheltered a bit, which is to be expected both in terms of zone starts and ice time, but they are starting to get used more without much problem. Nakladal was out in OT, and Spoon out on the PK. Didn't get scored on in either situation when they were out there.