Quote:
Originally Posted by GioforPM
That's actually really good.
Top six on Nashville: Sissons-Johansen-Arvidsson; Fiala-Turris-Smith
Top six on Tampa: Kunitz-Stamkos-Kucherov; Namistekov-Point-Johnson
Top six on Boston: Marchand-Bergeron-Pastrnak; DeBrusk-Krejci-Spooner
The point being, there are few if any teams with a "top six" that don't have at least one guy who's probably more like a third liner. And lots of players with a bunch of points wouldn't have them unless they were playing with the linemates they have.
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I think you're missing the point I'm trying to make. We only have 8 players that you would want playing in the top 9 at the moment and 2 of them are young and struggling to find their way. If you solidify that group with another strong winger it could go along way in helping out the 2 struggling youngsters.
Giving Bennett and Jankowski a legitimate top 9 player to play with would greatly help them generate more offense and build some confidence. The way I see it none of Brouwer, Hathaway, Stajan, Lazar, Mangiapane, Hrivik, Lomberg or an injured Jagr and Versteeg equate to a legitimate top 9 player and given that Benny and Janko are trying to solidify themselves as good top 9ers it doesn't help playing with, at best, 4th liners.
A healthy Jagr and/or Versteeg could have changed that but they are both dealing with injuries.
In regards to your argument:
Nashville: they also boast Forsberg (39-16-22-38), Jarnkrok (51-12-14-26) and Bonino and Hartnell with 7 goals each in their forward ranks.
Tampa Bay: one of the deepest teams in the league also has Gourde (52-18-18-36), Palat (46-8-22-30) and Killorn (52-7-22-29) upfront.
Boston: not only do they have one of, if not, the best lines in the league they also have Heinen (46-11-24-35), Backes (33-9-11-20) and Nash (49-7-15-22) on top of the 'not ideal' Spooner (30-8-13-21) and Debrusk (46-11-15-26).
Calgary, outside of its top 5 forwards, has zero forwards with at least 20 points. You can give a pass to Frolik who has 17 points in 40 games but outside the top two lines we don't generate enough offense.
Bennett, Jankowski and Brouwer are all in the 15-18 point range and it gets even worse further down the depth charts.
As good as our top 5-6 forwards have been we need some semblance of depth that can chip in every so often if we are going to legitimately compete. Jankowski and Bennett are fine playing on the 3rd line but could really use a strong player to play with to push their line to the next level.
I'm not saying we have the assets to do it (outside of trading good prospects) but our forward depth is our biggest weakness and adding, specifically a top 9 right-handed winger, to the group could go along way.