There has been a lot of talk among the signing and trade threads about D pairs now that Weegar has arrived, and whether the team should investigate trading a d man to bolster the front. In light of this, I thought it was time to bust out a separate conversation on the future D-core.
balance them all pretty evenly/depending on who's playing well each evening. Gives each pair a LHD and RHD, and rather than targeting certain styles of player for each pair, it more groups specific playstyles with eachother to then deploy as a styled unit. Hanifin and Weegar both play a strong skating puck movement game. Zadorov and Tanev are a WAY, way better version of our twin towers last year (tanev >>> Gud, and Zadorov just got better as time under sutter increased.) Andersson and Kylington have a history playing together, and could feast on less skilled opponents.
I came to these pairings when looking at the available d men, I thought to myself: Sutter likes playing the two biggest guys together, seemingly does it often. In that approach this is the result.
PP1: Weegar-Huberdeau : these guys played point on the PP in florida and it was way better than ours. Why reinvent a wheel here?
pp2: Kylington-Andersson
pk1: Zadorov-Tanev
pk2: Hanifin-Andersson
7th D: between Meloche, Gilbert, Mackey or Stone
So for me, I am trading Valimaki immediately. I don't see any future path for him with this club today. I would target other 2017 first rounders (forwards) who havent marked it in the NHL yet: Glass, Patrick, Lias Andersson, Frost, Kostin. Maybe a 2018 (if we add we could potentially look at Hayton or Zadina for example...) point here is that there are forward prospects of the same ilk who are in similar situations: Injuries/ covid years stealing development path and other players slotting ahead of them. Valimaki was still very recently a top performer in the finnish league, so his value shouldnt be cratered yet.
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I think we could actually see Hanifin-Andersson, Kylington-Tanev, Zadorov-Weegar to start, with all getting pretty equal minutes at 5v5.
One thing that I think happens for sure though is that Weegar-Tanev is our first PK pair. Weegar led the panthers in PK time last year and it’s one of his strengths.
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I'd actually really liked Hanifin - Tanev so I would love to see it again next season.
Hanifin - Tanev
Weegar - Andersson
Kylington - Zadorov
Against less top heavy teams I might even try the following:
Hanifin - Andersson
Kylington - Tanev
Zadorov - Weegar
That said I still expect a move to be made on defense. One of Kylington/Hanifin might be on the way out depending on Sutter's and Treliving's preference. In addition, at least one of Valimaki and Mackey might be on the move.
by no means is Weegar a third pairing guy, obviously. But the other two pairings were really solid for the most part last season, so I'd just keep them. Let Weegar play PP1 and PK1 and rack up the minutes this way.
by no means is Weegar a third pairing guy, obviously. But the other two pairings were really solid for the most part last season, so I'd just keep them. Let Weegar play PP1 and PK1 and rack up the minutes this way.
Do we know for sure if Weegar is equally comfortable on the left as the right? Looks like he's played a lot of time to the left of Ekblad, but a lot of years he's actually had better stats away from Ekblad where he's played mostly on the right.
I think without knowing that for sure it's hard to make reasonable pairs. If Weegar's truly equally strong on both sides, hard not to run Weegar-Tanev as the top pair. But if he's stronger on the right, then Zadorov-Weegar gives us phenomenal depth if they run each pair ~16-18 minutes a night at 5 on 5.
That gives us a really solid top pair and reunites Hanifin-Tanev, who were strong a couple of years ago. The third pair could either be solid or a train wreck in their own zone. If it's the latter, you probably look at spreading it out with traditional left-right combos.
Do we know for sure if Weegar is equally comfortable on the left as the right? Looks like he's played a lot of time to the left of Ekblad, but a lot of years he's actually had better stats away from Ekblad where he's played mostly on the right.
I think without knowing that for sure it's hard to make reasonable pairs. If Weegar's truly equally strong on both sides, hard not to run Weegar-Tanev as the top pair. But if he's stronger on the right, then Zadorov-Weegar gives us phenomenal depth if they run each pair ~16-18 minutes a night at 5 on 5.
Thing is, I don't think Sutter ever ran Zadorov/Gudbranson equal to the other pairings. and if it cuts down Weegar's minutes, I'm against it. He's the top defenceman on the team.
Do we know for sure if Weegar is equally comfortable on the left as the right? Looks like he's played a lot of time to the left of Ekblad, but a lot of years he's actually had better stats away from Ekblad where he's played mostly on the right.
I think without knowing that for sure it's hard to make reasonable pairs. If Weegar's truly equally strong on both sides, hard not to run Weegar-Tanev as the top pair. But if he's stronger on the right, then Zadorov-Weegar gives us phenomenal depth if they run each pair ~16-18 minutes a night at 5 on 5.
When Weegar was asked about this he said he is comfortable with both and he would just adjust and have some fun with it. He said he likes the off-side, but there are definitely some times where it handcuffs him a little bit. He mentioned that making plays on the backhand is a little bit tough, but you just adapt to it. On the other hand he mentioned that in the offensive zone you can walk the wall a little bit better, and see the ice a little bit better, especially when skating up the ice he can see the whole zone. He also said that initially he didn't really have a choice, he had to adapt to it, or he wouldn't have been playing.
Source: Starts talking about the off-side at about 1:29:20
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D Pairings next season
