I'm optimistic about this lineup; especially the blueline. Kylington, Mackey and Petrovic could all win that spot from Nesterov. Up front I'm banking on some development from Mangi and Dube, as well as some bounce back from the top line. My only real concern is the PK, we need 6-7 regular forwards (in part because Backlund takes far too many penalties) and we really only have 4 in Lindholm, Backlund, Ryan and Nordstrom. This is why I wanted us to sign Melker Karlsson, he would be great on the 4th line as the #5 PKer that slides up. Who else do we see on the PK? Bennett and Dube saw a small amount in the playoffs. Simon has seen a small amount. Mangiapane has seen a small amount. When Peters was hired, it was suggested Tkachuk could be tried on the PK but that never came to fruition.

I think Simon penalty kills, and dube or mange can in a pinch too

Simon doesn't (it was like the first thing I looked up lol), last year he averaged a career high of 14 seconds per game on the PK, the same as Dube did in the regular season IIRC. Mangi and Bennett played a small amount in the playoffs, but I think it was in the 10-15 second range too. I feel like this is so vital because Backlund is among the team leaders in minor penalties taken

wow didn't realize that, if we trade ryan too its not looking good

Yeah. it's really rough looking. People love to **** on Jankowski, but he was a great PKer for us, last year he played the second most SH-TOI despite all those scratches and of the big 4 PKers, he was tied for fewest PK-GA with Ryan, meaning he had the best PK-GA/Min on the team of the top 4 PKers for the second straight year. Thankfully Nordstrom has comparable PK numbers the past couple years.

Rieder however was borderline top 4 this year, so his loss hurts. 6th in PK-TOI for us last year was Frolik who was moved 2/3 of the way through the season, so that compounds the issue a bit.7th in PK time (at a hair over 7 minutes total) was Dube, who only saw 10 seconds per game. Bennett was 8th and had 4 seconds per game. Buddy Robinson managed to be after Bennett and played 33 seconds a game on the PK. Simon would have been ahead of Dube with almost 15 minutes total and 14 seconds per game.

Dube is a natural to give more PK time to I think, he was a top PKer in junior IIRC; as is Simon who is a smart defensive player.