Quote:
Originally Posted by GranteedEV
Um.. re: bolded. That is an optimistic position. There is plenty of wing talent that could plausibly replace him for the next decade (er... eight years) if push came to shove. Especially if there were an associated cap hit saving to spread out the top end talent:
Kucherov
Panarin
Stone
Forsberg
Tarasenko
Toffoli
Palat
Landeskog
Laine
Keller
Marner
Ehlers
Drouin
Puljujarvi
Connor
Domi
Boeser
..never mind other forwards who while natural centers still could make potent wingers (McDavid, Eichel, Matthews, Bennett, Kuznetsov, MacKinnon, Barkov, Nylander, Aho, Strome, Draisaitl, Nugent-Hopkins, Larkin).
Johnny is special. But he ain't the only special on the entire map. He plays a highly offensive role on a highly offensive team with generous minutes that afford him better offensive production than some two-way centres may get.
Does he excel in his role yes but to say he's irreplaceable is hyperbole. He's not Crosby here. He's not even TJ Brodie. He's not Jamie Benn either.
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None of those guys could assuredly replace what Johnny brings. Do some have the potential? Possibly.
But you're right, he's not irreplaceable. He's just harder to replace than Monahan.