If they do this, they're going to have to get past teams such as Boston, Florida, Tampa, Toronto in the Atlantic Division, and then beat out teams such as Carolina, NYI, NYR, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington in the Metropolitan Division for a wild card spot. This means very aggressive in FA, and maybe making a couple big trades.
This is assuming Danault doesn't return
Lines + explanations:
Anderson - Suzuki - Caufield // this line was very effective in the playoffs, for the two games they played. In game 4 Anderson had two goals, one was a full line effort and the other was in overtime with Caufield. Game 5 no one scored anything but they did very good pressuring Tampa in the third period, and throughout the game.
Toffoli - Kotkaniemi - Gallagher // Simply the three best players available. With Danault gone, KK will have to step up and take the second line spot, otherwise MTL will have to either put Evans there, try Drouin at centre again, or trade for someone.
Drouin - Evans - Armia // Keep Drouin in a place where he hopefully won't have as much pressure, and can put up a decent amount of points. Armia and Evans make up 2/3 of a shutdown line which hopefully will be okay, with Drouin learning from the two.
Byron - Poehling - Perry // Byron's speed makes up for Perry's s l o w, and Poehling centres them both. They can be the line that grinds everyone out and can put up some big hits. Lehkonen comes in every so often for most likely Perry because he won't play 82 games.
Edmundson - Petry // This just makes sense, worked for the entire season. Hopefully will continue working.
Chiarot - Savard // Savard is somewhat a Weber-type player, so if Weber and Chiarot worked decent together, hopefully Chiarot can play well with Savard as well.
Romanov - Schmidt // Simply the two best defenders left available on the team. Kulak comes in every so often for Romanov.
Price // The starter who hopefully doesn't mess up. If he does, Allen becomes the starter.
Allen // The 1B, AKA the contingency plan if Price goes bonkers and fails to become his playoff self.
You dont want schmidt at 6 millions for 4 years…. Van will have to py to get rid of him especially with their cap situation
This is going to age poorly, imo. Look at the prices for right side d-men in the past week. Plus the interest in Schmidt has gone up since teams "missed out" on Risto.
interesting post cause it's very realistic and feasible...but i don't think we contend with this line-up. KK is just not there yet . Poor to average in the D zone. To contend MB will have to perform some magic. If you can somehow take Byron's money and Schmidt and turn that into a Hamilton... Or put 5.5 $M on Danault instead of Schmidt.
I doubt the rangers miss the playoffs but a TDL trade for a Drouin - Zibanejad - Toffoli line could be great
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