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Originally Posted by Roof-Daddy
I do not know what Tre should do with this team if they get knocked out in the 1st round again. It's a confusing mess. I honestly cannot tell if they are a couple of solid tweaks away from taking the next step, if it needs a major retooling, or if they need to tear it down and start over.
The D is a mess. They are probably losing Brodie, Forbort, Gustafsson and Hamonic plus Gio is almost 37 and showing major signs of a serious drop off.
We can't go into next season with Rittich as the main goalie can we? He's the only one signed though for now, and he's too expensive to be just a back up.
Up front you can't make any major additions without moving a big piece out because there isn't enough cap space and the defense and goaltending will suffer as a result.
I was 99% sure it was time to move on from Bennett but now I'm stuck between selling high and "holy ####, he's finally arrived, let's keep him and play him at C with Dube and Tkachuk next year".
Mangi and Dube look like they're blossoming, so maybe you don't mess with the forward group too much and just add to D and goaltending?
And to top it all off, any decent addition anywhere to the line up is only going to result in the loss of a better player for nothing at the end of next season when Seattle comes calling.
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I'm pretty open to moving on from a lot of the core - barring a miracle run. I think this year's draft is a pretty excellent time to do it as well.
The defence has Valimaki, Andersson and Hanifin going forward - that's not awful. If we can add in Jamie Drysdale I think we're right back into a "damn our defence is really good" situation with some young stars (Valimaki, Drysdale) and prime aged defenders (Hanifin, Andersson). I want our Heiskanen/Makar - and we don't have one. I'm not completely in love with Hanifin and if we're talking someone else coming in and making a big offer for him (incl. a top 10 pick in this year's draft - again, this is the draft to do it in), then I do that and turn to re-signing Brodie.
In net this team needs to go after Robin Lehner or Jacob Markstrom (heavy bias towards Lehner on my end). Lock them up for term and hope Wolf continues to develop. He'll need a good veteran to help him break into the league anyways. So next year: Lehner + Rittich. If we come back with Talbot and Rittich, we just won't improve - and I'm tired of this team standing still.
Up front I think you start prioritizing a new core that has a "win by any means necessary" attitude. That means the new core is Bennett, Tkachuk, Dube, Lindholm, Mangiapane and I still think Monahan fits in there (I see the dude trying - he's working hard, but I honestly think he and Lindholm are both being hurt by Johnny's inability to carry the puck and his complete lack of ability to play defence). That's 6 forwards locked in for the expansion draft's 7 slots. If we can snag Hall, then there you go - that's the 7. Drafting Lapierre also gives you another bullet at the centre ice position - and it may still end up that Dube returns to centre so then we have Dube - Bennett - Monahan, which could be good - but Lapierre (one of the players I've perhaps irrationally fallen in love with heading to the draft) is another opportunity to snag a centre.
Lindholm got called last night for a bit of a phantom cross-check and yeah it sucks, but at the same time I think it's good to have players who are laying those cross-checks. Ditto with Bennett's "charge". This team needs to get away from playing vanilla, passive hockey. Speed, skill and aggression should be the identity of the team going forward.