Quote:
Originally Posted by gvitaly
Man I wish I had your optimism. I really hope things work out that way. As for a RW, I thought they tried returning to Gaudreau - Monahan - Lindholm this season but it was a lot less effective than Gaudreau - Lindholm - Tkachuk. They were also skating with Tkachuk after being on the PK, that also didn't help generate much offense.
I don't think anyone thinks that Monahan is barely an NHLer. I think the trade value of Monahan comes from fans not being sure about him being a $6.375M player in the next two seasons. For example Lindholm is arguably the most valuable forward on the team, but if he was paid $10M a season instead of about 5 he would have a lot less value in trade.
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I think Gaudreau and Monahan got stale playing with one another. They got comfortable doing the same things that have worked over the years but I think teams have wised up and figured out how to limit their effectiveness together.
I think Monahan can still be a solid top 6 C but the team needs to stop playing low end players in their top 6. Guys like Ritchie and Simon should have never been anywhere near the top two lines.
Tkachuk, Lindholm, Gaudreau, Monahan, Mangiapane, Coleman, Dube and Backlund are all solid players so I don’t think we will have the same problem this season.
I do still expect a trade to happen so we shall see how it all shakes out..