That makes sense.

Maybe we make a draft-day trade involving #15, although, to my knowledge, draft-day trades where a team tries to trade up because a player is falling usually just involves draft picks. But that could be ok, too.

Ok, so let's say we get either Smith or Granlund at a reasonable cost ($5-$6M range?). What's our next priority? Has to be 3C, yes? I think we could have about $4-$5M left.
- Hockey66

Realistically, I think McCann is still the 3C. Really, it's the 4C so I don't see spending bigger money on that than McCann's bridge deal. He played with at least one weak wing most of the time once Crosby returned including Marleau in playoffs but was successful when he had some combo of Kahun, Hornqvist, and Simon on his wing.

Funny that they didn't look too slow at all the first 2.5 games. Geno was full clip mode at times this season... Which was only months ago. Also, Sid was injured almost all of camp and I can't help but think it was still nagging a bit. Guentzel not fully back to speed, he's only 25 and Letang looked the most rusty of everyone IMO.

Having said this, they're definitely not as fast as they used to be and that makes me think as they are in the back years maybe it's time to change team strategies to suit this. They still have piles of skill, strength and IQ. Look how effective Jagr was at this age and older. He slowed down but was still super effective.
- MattStrat

They can surround the stars with speed, but really they did that. Whatever else they aren't, Sheary, Zucker, Rust, Tanev, Blueger, Marleau, McCann are all fast. ZAR and Hornqvist were the only supporting guys who aren't.

Montreal is faster though so they negated that advantage. And with the age of our stars, there will always be teams out there that can. They were able to take away the speed and territory advantage because despite not having our finishers, they always had that edge. Almost everyone overlooked that .

Realistically, I think McCann is still the 3C. Really, it's the 4C so I don't see spending bigger money on that than McCann's bridge deal. He played with at least one weak wing most of the time once Crosby returned including Marleau in playoffs but was successful when he had some combo of Kahun, Hornqvist, and Simon on his wing.
- Tojo.

You don't like Blueger as the 4c?

New blog