Quote:
Originally Posted by Harry Lime
With injured Jagr, Stajan, Brouwer and Versteeg moving along (likely), I think that the pure enthusiasm of a Klimchuk, Mangiapane and possibly Dube could by itself be a significant upgrade to the bottom six.
One killer move at centre or right wing, and let the rest of the team settle into a high tempo game.
Bozaks, JVRS and the like would signal more mediocrity to me.
|
I agree with this. This team needs to make one more investment in their top 6, and then got younger/faster in the bottom 6.
Look at some of the teams in the playoffs and how their bottom 6 forwards from a minutes per game perspective were made up:
Washington - Cap Hit- $8.25M
-Vrana
-Burakovsky
-Connolly
-Stephenson
-Beagle
-Smith-Pelley
Vegas - Cap Hit - $7.34M
-Eakin
-Carpenter
-Bellemare
-Nosek
-Reaves
-Carrier
Winnipeg - Cap Hit - $9.3M
-Little
-Tanev
-Lowry
-Copp
-Armia
-Roslovic
Tampa Bay - $14.7M (which they could do since Point, Sergachev, Miller were on good deals/ELCS)
-Killorn
-Gourde
-Cirelli
-Callahan
-Paquette
-Kunitz
Pittsburgh - $9.9M
-Shehan
-Rust
-Brassard
-Simon
-Sheary
-Khunhackl
Nashville - $6.4M
-Fiala
-Watson
-Jarnkrok
-Fisher
-Sissions
-Hartman
And compare that to our bottom 6 last year (assuming all healthy):
Flames - $13.35M
-Stajan
-Brouwer
-Bennett
-Jankowski
- Versteeg
- Lazar
So the Flames were near the top of the pack and easily had the worst bottom 6 of all those teams. Only the ultra deep Lightning cap hit was close, and they have Point on an ELC and Kucherov on a sweetheart deal to make up for it. Ideally I don't think you should be spending more than $10M on your bottom 6. This team really needs to follow Nashville/Washington/Winnipeg's lead and get younger and cheaper in their bottom 6 forwards if they want to succeed.
Stajan/Versteeg/Jagr being gone is a good start but they really need to find a way to move on from Brouwer too.