Quote:
Originally Posted by driveway
As constituted, if this team plays to its full and complete potential we're out in the 2nd round of the playoffs. That's our ceiling.
I am on team blow it up.
Keep: Markstrom, Valimaki, Andersson, Lindholm
Try to keep: Mangiapane, Dube, Hanifin
|
Keep: Markstrom, Hanifin, Andersson, Valimaki, Tanev, Gaudreau, Monahan, Lindholm, Tkachuk, Dube, Mangiapane
Try to keep: Nesterov
The team just isn’t as deep upfront as we were led to believe. I’ve been saying for years we need more offence upfront and a legit #1.
We figured out the goalie issue and we have a solid foundation on defence but our forward depth is no good.
I’m not happy with the coaching decisions either but when you have a struggling Backlund and a 4th liner in Lucic making over $11.5m you are going to have some issues.
I love him but when you also have Ryan as your 4th line center making $3.1m you pretty much have $15m of salary struggling as a 3rd line center and/or on the 4th line.
It’s a killer as we should have that money at the top of the roster and have cheap players like Dube and Mangiapane sprinkled in to provide us with more depth.
I like aspects of Backlund, Lucic, Ryan and Leivo’s games but in general I only really like 6 forwards on this team when everything is considered (age, cap hit, effectiveness in contributing to wins).
Roster construction is the real problem here.
I think the team needs to rid itself of Lucic somehow (not sure how) trade Bennett in a package to acquire another RS winger that is worthy of a protection spot and let Backlund go to Seattle or trade him.