It's not even that they didn't make it through the first round - Monahan (cuz that's who this thread is about) stunk for months - enough that we were wondering if his wrist was screwed up for real again.
It wasn't. So... uh-oh spaghettio.
Monahan is drifting into that Ryan Nugent-Hopkins sort of zone... is this guy really good or is he sort of really good at one thing and a bunch of the rest of his game is not really there.
Broader: I think fans of this team and ownership too have for a long time over-rated their own assets. The attitude of the team with Sutter as GM was "we're like, 1 piece away from a cup" and the truth was, they were a Kiprusoff injury away from a lottery pick.
I think guys like Jankowski who we want to love cuz he's our pick after all.... just don't have enough skill or grunt to make it in the NHL - another Josh Jooris, a tweener. And we've got lots of those up front, I hate to say it. We have 1 real dangerous winger. ONE. And teams are booked up on him now. Lindholm might be a second, but he's not REAL dangerous, he's not a sniper, he's a good hockey player - league is full of 'em.
Do we hope for Czarnik to come along? Hell yeah. Is he gonna be Pastrnak? Hell no!
Buncha mediocre wingers, buncha mediocre centermen (I do love Backlund, he works so hard, but I'd love it if he was a 3c). I think our D are good enough, but they can't handle a real fast hard game because the forwards are not a) helping enough and b) dangerous enough. I think these playoffs showed a real weakness in playing style, or maybe in ability.
Maybe we DO need a Kadri, I dunno.
|