Quote:
Originally Posted by Bubba17
Why do people keep saying this, was he they key driver in getting to the finals, or was he one of the 25 guys who played on a team and rode the hot goalie to the cup finals?
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Florida was essentially running with three centers the entire playoffs - Barkov, Bennett, and Lundell - not unlike what the Flames were doing with Lindholm, Backlund, and Kadri earlier this year.
Lundell was averaging 17:00-18:00 mins a night (excluding the big 4OT game against the Canes) during that run while mostly playing with Reinhart and Luostarinen at ES, taking lots of D-zone starts, and anchoring their second PK unit (Barkov had PK1)
He's already a good player that can comfortably hold down the #3C spot on a president trophy worthy team, and has room to grow on both offense and defense. If he ends up on the Flames, it's a safe bet that he'll be Backlund v1.1, but even better at faceoffs than Backlund is.
The Flames could do a lot worse than Hanifin for Lundell on a 1:1 swap...if Hanifin is a pure rental to Florida. Personally, I think he's a way more compelling "get" than Poitras or anything that the Canes can offer.
Poitras is still young, but his WJC performance this year was really disappointing for someone playing in the NHL...there was no reason he should have been as invisible as he was.