Quote:
Originally Posted by GioforPM
Well, he was, 85% of the time or so, either with Aho or Skinner. But he was drafted as a C and there was a lot of talk here that he could centre a line (quite a bit of Tkachuk-Lindholm-Neal talk).
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I'd also like to see Lindholm as a full time centre. Monahan is a good centre but debatable as a No. 1, obviously. I do think he's shown some more jam and improvement in his game this season though. It's looking to me like it's Johnny that hasn't been able to enhance his game as of yet.
IMHO, the plan for the team this year should be to trial some players in different roles and not just for one game. It's obvious to me that this group can get to the playoffs but depending on the match-up, they can be beaten. We need to find out who has the playoff potential and who is expendable.
I think when Bennett is healthy the line-up should look like this. Barring any trades I think it could give us the best chance at beating playoff-proven teams that can line-match. Essentially we could have two #1 lines and roll one more depending which is playing better on a particular night.
Gaudreau - Monahan - Mangiapane
Tkachuk - Lindholm - Bennett/Dube
Lucic - Backlund - Frolik/Rieder
Jankowski - Ryan - Rieder/Dube
Just typing those lines out screams to me how much we need a RH scoring forward.
As far as the D goes, maybe some of the injuries have been blessings in disguise. I really thought Kylington was a potential Brodie replacement but it's not looking like it so far. I don't think I would trade Brodie. Unfortunately, with the Valimaki injury this year I don't think we can give up a full-time D in a trade and still compete.
