Quoting: Kylonetic8
I'm guessing you think the only major problem with the Caps was the coaching with this lineup? Losing Holtby might be a net positive, Sammy/Vanacek do better overall I suspect.
Kind of. Every team has a lot of things it could improve.
The team won the division last year with basically the above lineup, plus a week or two of Kovalchuk.
Are Samsonov and Vanecek as good as Holtby by save percentage behind similar defenses? Probably. Samsonov's stats looked better than Holtby's last year with both on WSH. The year before, Vanecek's stats looked better than Samsonov's with both in Hershey. But the NHL season is long and opponents are rough on goalies. Holtby has the endurance to lead a team through a season and the playoffs. Samsonov might not, yet.
I created a player for a $1M post-buyout Marc-Andre Fleury, above, as a backup option if Holtby gets a big UFA offer, but then I deleted it because it was beside the point.
Quoting: markykins1
I don't know. I'm kinda meh on Dillion now, won't cry if he signs somewhere else to be honest. Plus, he might not fit what the new coach wants so I won't mind if they look elsewhere. I like Namestnikov as a 3rd, sometimes 2nd liner. He could go to the left wing which could bump Hags to the 4th line where he belongs.
Dillon played some tough minutes in WSH and got some great corsi, but not much personal offense. He's a big guy who stays in position and plays the body, not the puck. That's the classic type of guy you pair with a puck carrier like Carlson. On the other hand, Carlson didn't get many points playing with Dillon, and didn't win a playoff series. So maybe Carlson and Kempny play pretty well together, just based on points and series wins, even if nothing about Kempny's pre-Carlson stats or style said "top pairing D?"
I'd love to see Namestnikov center Ovechkin and Kuznetsov, so Kuznetsov doesn't have to backcheck as much, and has more energy in his legs to create rushes. That's the way the above contract turns out very good. Otherwise, it turns out to be just slightly a bad deal for the team, but for a very long time. The only things Namestnikov brings that Hagelin doesn't are right-handed faceoffs and speaking Russian.