Quote:
Originally Posted by SeanCharles
Mangiapane will get his chances when injuries occur. There is no need to be rushing to push out a young, talented player to make room for him.
The goal should be to have all three guys on the team contributing.. Why do we need to pick and choose between them. Ideally a player like Mangiapane replaces a guy like Frolik not a guy like Bennett.
The beauty with how Treliving has managed the cap, coinciding the fact we have guys like Dube, Andersson, Mangiapane, Valimaki and Kylington pushing hard for jobs, is we can remain competitive because we can replace older guys that have bigger contracts, with younger guys on cheaper contracts.
Replacing Frolik and Stone with Mangiapane and Valimaki/Kylington will go a long way in keeping the core together since we will have to pay Tkachuk, solidify a starting netminder, possibly give Bennett/Czarnik raises and deal with Brodie/Hamonic as UFA's in the next couple seasons.
We don't need to rush all these guys onto the team because, like I said, they will get a ton of opportunities when injuries strike.
Mangiapane will be the first forward called up when a regular gets injured so he will still get a ton of NHL action this season.
We certainly don't need to trade Bennett to allow him to make the team right out of camp.
We need to be smart and continue expanding the contending window by replacing older guys with younger guys to keep the cap manageable and team competitive.
Bennett should be in the group of players we want to be here for a long time - players like Gaudreau, Monahan, Tkachuk, Lindholm, Jankowski, Czarnik, Dube, Mangiapane, Hanafin, Andersson, Valimaki and Kylington.
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I agree with your assessment. We need to keep in mind future development and cap concerns. Bennett on a team-friendly contract could be a good 3rd-4th liner and excellent penalty killer still under team control for a good long time.
Frankly, if the top prospects continue to show well, I wouldn't mind moving Frolik and Stone at the trade deadline to continue to build for the future and to make the necessary cap room available for our upcoming free agents.