Swap Pulju and Kassian

Yeah I think they will give pul a shot with Jesus but I don’t think they will keep him here for long, they will try to balance the lines

Are you banking on Klef being in the lineup? Probably not a good bet. Sounds like at best he'll be back for the playoffs.

Also pretty sure Bear will be squeezed for less than that (no arb rights). I think a 1 year deal is most likely, then assess his value on a long term deal when Larsson and Barrie are both expiring next summer as well.

Swap Draisaitl and Nugent-Hopkins, then swap Ennis with Neal. That’s what I would do.

Nah I’d do

Ennis-Mcd-Pulju
RNH-Drai-Yamamoto

That could work too. I said Nuge with McDavid because of how well they did in the playoffs.

I'm surprised they went with Barrie over an internal option like Bouchard. Barrie @$3.75/1 year is a good move, but they must be looking at trading a dman at some point, no?

I guess they will let Bouchard dominate in AHL he will play 25 min at nights plus he will likely be a good leadership since he will be the best dman in the team

I don't see it that way. Bouchard is set to be very good, but throwing him into the space Barrie will occupy instead as a given would be Justin Schultz levels of stupid. While Barrie is RH and Klef was LH, the main point for Barrie is to take over Klefbom's PP time. Klef averaged nearly 4 minutes per game on the PP, Barrie takes all of that, and then should play about 18 mins EV per game instead of the 21-22 minutes Klef was playing EV +PK combined (yep he played over 25 mins a game...big shoes).

The rest of Klef's EV and PK minutes should be eaten up by a more experienced Jones (who I hope plays with Barrie at EV about that full 18 mins), and then a bit here and there with a bottom pair of Larsson and Russell that, while not flashy, is defensively sound and good for PK duty.

If Bouch was up I wouldn't want him starting out at more than about 12 mins EV plus the 3-4 mins of PP per game. More than that would be irresponsible to guarantee. The Barrie stopgap is fantastic in that way.