We're one legitimate scoring threat on the first line wing away from being in the conversation. If management continues to play the revolving door game at 1RW, we're all going to look back and wonder, "what if Gaudreau and Monahan actually had a real linemate all those years?". If I could slot a player in the league onto that line, it would be someone like Wayne Simmonds. His contract situation does not work in terms of a trade, but a player in that mold would fit perfectly. But at the end of the day, we need another very good player there because Johnny and Sean will never carry dead weight to a cup.
Our bottom six as stands doesn't cut it, but Jankowski will be there this season and I'm praying to Jeebus that Bennett is finally moved to the wing for the time being. With guys like Dube and Lomberg ready to jump into the bottom six soon, it will function better than it does now with tools like Stajan and Glass and Hamilton.
Our defense is set, both presently and 3-5 years down the road. Andersson, Kylington, Valimaki, Fox is a nice group. I wouldn't be surprised to see one of them moved for help up front at some point.
Goaltending seems great, Smith looks like he's going to be a rock for us and honestly Parsons is probably already close to Gillies and Rittich, it's only a matter of a couple years before he forces management's hands with his play and leapfrogs them both.
I think there's potential for them to be serious contenders but they're one or two moves away as I don't see any internal options at RW unless Bennett somehow found his way onto that line and a miracle happened. I expect us to make some noise in the playoffs this year but we are not in that 4-5 team conversation as legitimate Cup threats and likely won't be in three years if we don't make some tough decisions.
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