Quote:
Originally Posted by Strange Brew
I hope those of you not worried about offense because it wasn't a problem last year are right. I am mildly concerned we have less skill up front than at this time last year.
Maybe someone emerges.
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Backlund has been underrated for a while, and if you look at the NHL forward leaders from last year, his 47 points puts him at #97, barely in second line territory.
I think it should be clear that our biggest glaring opening is at first line RW, and I don't know that we have a guy on the team that can fill it, but we're certainly looking at a situation where we have 3 solid pairs at least, with the Monahan-Gaudreau, Bennett-Brouwer, Backlund-Frolik.
We need to find good support for the first pair, but I think the rest of the lineup should fall into place fairly well with how much offensive support our D gives. The thing to keep in mind is that with how bad last season was, we were 10th overall in goals scored. Offense wasn't our problem.
I get what you're concerned about with secondary scoring from guys like Colborne and Jones leaving, and of course Hudler, but the latter is the only guy who imo was a guy who made things happen on his own as opposed to took the opportunity they were given. There are openings for people to take, and I think we have some guys who can at worst get close to the holes that were created, and maybe have to ability to match or better the guys we had last year.
At worst, I think we fall 5 spots from the 10th overall in offense we had last year, but I would bet a fairly substantial sum that we improve in our defense more than we lose in our offense.