Quoting: Stan_Bowman
When reflecting on this season all too often I remember how bad we were at getting pucks out of our zone and through the neutral zone. While Boqvist has all of the potential in the world I ask you who else has the potential to be a puck moving D? Sure Kalynuk looks like he has some potential but all I see him as right now is a Gus clone... the team lead for points this season was 16 from Boqvist.
Most of those assists were secondary as well meaning he wasn’t driving the offense being produced. The fact is that our defensive will be better next season if we have dougie because we will have to defend much less because we will have more D that are capable of moving the puck.
That's fair. However, Mitchell, Kalynuk, BoQ, Beaudin, Regula (is a bit of tweener), Keith are all puck moving D men. They need more time to develop (all of them besides keith obviously), but they are all puck movers. Stillman, Murphy, Vlassic, Zadarov are the only defensive D men and besides Murphy, I don't see the other three as top 4 guys...maybe Vlassic will be. Therein lies the problem for the hawks. In order for a puck moving D man to be successful, even Hamilton, they need to be paired with a defensive D man...look at Hamilton's pairings for example. We simply have too many puck moving d men and not enough defensive d men.
Problem with the fans is there is no patience. BoQ, Mitchell, Beaudin, Regula, Vlassic, Kalynuk are all going to be solid NHL players (notice all puck movers besides Vlassic); we need the patience to let these guys develop and in the meantime, focus on a defensive d man on the top line so we can pair correctly.
xxxx - BoQ
Keith - Murphy
Stillman/Kalynuk - Mitchell/Regula
That's where the gaping hole is IMO and the problem with Hamilton is it creates even a bigger hole.
xxxx - Hamilton
Keith - Murphy
Stillman/Kalynuk - BoQ/Mitchell
Who do you pair with Hamilton? You switch Murphy to his off side (which he is much better on the right) and then you leave a hole on the 2nd line as well. Bottom line, trying to patch a hole that doesn't need patching still leaves the same biggest hole on the team....a #1 LH defensive Dman. Additionally, Hamilton turns 28 this week, so now we commit $8.5M of cap as he is hitting his prime for a team that is 2 to 3 years away from competing just as Hamilton starts to come off his prime. I get Lindholm is only 7 months younger, but he is going to be cheaper and allows the Hawks to acquire a prospect to jump in and fill his shoes eventually in 3 to 4 years plus. With Hamilton, we already have the prospects who will all look a lot different in 3 to 4 years and thus negate the need for hamilton at which point, moving $8.5m for a 31or 32 year old isn't going to be as easy.
Notice, I didn't list Beaudin, another puck mover, as needs another year in the AHL but he is coming along.