Quote:
Originally Posted by agulati
I don’t think we should be looking at trading Hanifin at this time. He has taken big strides this year into becoming a top pairing defenseman. Still not there, but his value will only go up (both for us and if we eventually move him)
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Yeah if this team wants to stay competitive (and maybe contend), we absolutely cannot trade Hanifin, Andersson, Tanev or Valimaki. Those are the pieces we need to keep on the back-end otherwise the defensive core just crumbles. Next season, we're going to be paying $6.75M to a bottom pairing defenceman in Giordano, we need those four guys playing ahead of him on the depth chart.
The strides Hanifin is making game to game this season are super encouraging. He's looked better and better as the year has gone on. If he could transition from taking wrist shots to snap shots, I think the points/goals will start stacking up.