Unless Wallstedt comes up at the end of this season and wows, I say they should run it back with Gus Bus and Flower and see if Gus can regain his consistency behind a healthier blueline (also assuming Flower wants to come back for one more go). Sprinkle in Wallstedt so that he is ready for a tandem workload in 25-26. Maroon could also instead be any sizeable veteran fourth liner, otherwise this team will be dangerously small.
My biggest question is how do they spend the extra ~4M due to the increased cap? No way they run it back with Johansson in that spot. It would be nice to sign a Pavelski/Duchene/Marchessault type for one year who can still be close to a PPG on that second line, but would someone like that want to come to Minnesota for a run instead of another team with a better cap situation? They don't want to block out the kids coming up anymore than they have, either. Speaking of which...
It could finally be the Year of the Kids, with Yurov/Ohgren/Heidt coming. And who knows - if Khusnutdinov looks good enough down the stretch here, maybe Guerin puts him at 2C next year and offloads Rossi for that top six guy or a veteran top-4 D?
McDavid, Connor
250 000 $)
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