Quoting: tsyls
Leafs fans like to think that their trades are the standard. Like you said Alec martinez got 2 2nds. So I think Niku + vesalainen and a first is more than fair. This trade needs to happen ASAP. Jets need to play Morrissey way less. If I was coaching, and ekholm was traded for, I’d be running:
Ekholm-Pionk
Morrissey-DeMelo
Stanley-Poolman
Stanley and poolman looked awesome together, makes Maurices comments about why demelo got put with Morrissey even more off. He said “it’s a matchup issue, that’s as grey as I can make it, not everyone is 100%”. That is weird no? Cause if we look at it, he had to have been talking about poolman being less than 100% but he looked awesome tonight. Must be something else going on. I have a feeling a trade is coming.
I know Maurice won’t play Stanley over Forbort, but it would be what I’d do. Also, the forward lines need to be tweaked, top 6 maybe not that much, but bottom 6 needs to be shuffled. I honestly wouldn’t mind seeing Copp move to 4th line and switch with perreault.
I think what Maurice was getting at was Poolman had threw the puck up the middle pretty badly, didn't lead to goals buy they weren't good so maybe think he was sending a message to Poolman and trying to settle Morrissey down by putting DeMelo next to him, personally I think Morrissey's struggles are mostly on him and have less to do with his partner, no doubt a better D partner would help though, DeMelo and Poolman are both third pair guys, decent ones but that's where they play their best cause that's what their abilities are suited for.
Forbort has been solid and steady, no way he should come out of the lineup. I've been impressed with Stanley but they both need to be in the lineup, isn't it obvious that part of the issues are the little dmen struggle to win a puck/board battle, that's not a problem for Forbort or Stanley.
If Ekholm was acquired DeMelo should be scratched imo, he's just too slow.
Honestly I'm not so sure the top 6 is really working either, if it wasn't for Ehlers the 2nd line would be totally invisible, Connor has been okay but Dubois hasn't done anything. The first line looks okay at times but really Wheeler looks really behind the play, how many 5v5 goals does the 25-55-26 line have? To me Schiefele is doing the heavy lifting on that line.
As for the bottom 6 well everyone knows I'm not much of a Lowry fan but I don't disagree swapping Copp and Perreault is probably necessary since Maurice will never let go of Lowry at 3C and since being reunited neither 9 or 17 haven't done much, Appleton on the other hand looks like he should get a shot in the top 6.