Quote:
Originally Posted by Jay Random
Argumentum ad futurum. ‘Nothing that has actually happened supports my silly opinion, so I'm going to make up future events and pretend they are facts.’
|
So how do you see Monahan’s next season going exactly? How does he get back to 30 goals playing with another Brett Ritchie or another Josh Leivo? The Flames don’t have the cap space to afford a playmaker on Johnny Gaudreau’s level.
Monahan generally scores his goals on the rush, being alone in the slot or a few feet in front of the net. So if Monahan struggles to rush the puck up the ice himself, who will help him with this task? Who will draw multiple defenders leaving him open in the slot and in front of the net?
Monahan’s struggles in goal scoring department is not due to this sudden hip injury because his struggles to score dates all the way back to 2019 when teams realized all they had to do was put a blanket over Gaudreau in the neutral zone and boom, top line completely nullified and that was with Lindholm playing on the right wing too.
Now Gaudreau and Lindholm have found a new linemate in Tkachuk and I don’t think they’ll ever look back. Teams have tried a variety of ways to stop them but they slice through it like a hot knife on butter. They score on the rush, on the cycle, while checking. They barely get hemmed in their own zone. That’s a what I would consider an unpredictable line and to me, that should be the standard for the second line too.