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Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
Yeah we do. I know you feel wingers are dime a dozen and defensemen are much more valuable and there's merit to that but the Penguins have won back to back Stanley Cups based on a deep forward group and very mediocre group of defensemen. There is 0.00001% chance a team will ever win a Stanley Cup with Ferland as your top line RW and based on him being nearly invisible against the Ducks I'm not sure you can win even a playoff series.
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This is a farcical exaggeration. The Penguins managed to win the Stanley Cup last year with Conor Sheary getting the lion's share of time on Crosby's wing in the playoffs. Ferland on the top line is probably not ideal, but so much depends on the balance of the rest of the roster. After his second full NHL season it is probably premature to draw conclusions on exactly what sort of player Ferland is.
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You can move up Tkachuk but I don't know if he's a great fit for that line as he's not really a burner and neither is Monahan making the line a bit too plodding. Team really needs a scoring threat on the other side of Monahan to open up space for Gaudreau as I don't know if he's going to get back to where he was two seasons ago as long as teams can ignore the other winger on that line.
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Gaudreau was scoring at a point/game clip with Ferland on the top line in the last six weeks of the regular season. The top line faltered in the playoffs, but again, I think it is still early to be drawing conclusions about each of these players' respective ceilings.