Girard I believe.

Byram and Girard both can and have already for the Avs

One of them is gonna have to

Girard did last year for a bit.

Or I think so at least.

He played a lot of RD and did it well.

I’d run
Toews - Makar
Murray - Girard
Byram - Johnson

Personally I like Girard on the right more because he was great on that side when paired with Toews. Byram can play the right as well. Personally if everybody hits where they are suppose to be I’d love to see
Byram Makar
Toews Girard
Murray EJ

I'd think Byram on the top pair is unlikely for 2021

Well considering he was playing top 4 last year when he got hurt and his underlying numbers were outstanding it isn’t that unlikely. Throw in Toews and Girard were spectacular together, and EJ and Murray are kinda the default PK tandem to take minutes away from Toews in particular. I don’t think it’s at all unlikely they kid was drafted 4th overall for a reason.

What I would like to see is them balance out the minutes a bit more to keep guys fresher. IMO, the way to do that, is keep Toews with Makar and pair Byram with EJ. Load management, particularly over an 82 game season is going to be very important so I'd rather they not stack the top 4 then play the bottom pair only 13-14 minutes. If I were Bednar, I'd play Toews-Makar about 23 minutes, Murray-Girard about 20 minutes and Byram-EJ about 17 minutes. Then I'd take advantage of my very strong D play from up top and run the PP with Byram-Makar and Toews-Girard.

Murray is imo the clear 6th dman and don’t have a whole lot of interest in seeing him on the 2nd pairing. I’m not super concerned about Makar and Toews minutes they are what they are. The minutes you want to manage are EJ and Murray who both have extensive injury histories.

There's a case to be made for that but I'd rather see them give those guys games off to help with load management. They can give MacDonald and Barron NHL time against lesser opponents. I'm not sure how wise it is to run your best guys minutes up over 82 games then ask them to do it throughout the playoffs as well. Tampa's 3rd pair was running around 17 minutes a game and that worked well for them. As for Murray being a 6th D, we'll have to disagree about that - he's quite a bit younger than EJ and stayed pretty healthy last season. IMO, EJ shouldn't be asked to play top 4 minutes. Could he and Murray play 3rd pair? Sure but, again, I like the idea of balancing the pairs a bit. Of course, it could shake out in any number of ways so we'll see.

Thinking Barron is going to play ANY minutes this season is a pipe dream, he needs to play top pairing, pp, and pk minutes in the AHL, there is a reason they signed a Johnson to a PTO (I wouldn’t have btw). Murray has played a full season once in his career and his possession metrics were significantly worse than Byram. Getting Byram to be what he is a top pairing dman, should be a priority because he is a difference maker. If it’s mean I give Byram every single minute he can handle.

There's a much larger sample size on Murray than there is on Byram but I hear what you're saying - Bo definitely has a lot more upside than Murray.

I'm not talking about Barron playing a significant number of games or sitting on the roster as the 7th D, maybe 5-8 games just to get some experience and give EJ some rest. Agree they shouldn't have signed JJ - MacDonald is a better option than him.

The frightening thing for me is that they seem intent on carrying MacDermid on the roster in any capacity, and they are one injury away from him playing a full time role.

Does JJ refer to Jack Johnson? I didn't realize they had him on a PTO

Assuming they don't sign Johnson or whomever JJ is, Barron is your 8th d then? The above 7 then him? Most teams are probably gonna lose over 100 man games to injuries from their D corps in a full season. If he is first call up, I suspect he'll get 15-30 GP. Someone will sprain something for 3 weeks, break something for 6 weeks. Someone will have a personal thing and miss 3 games (hopefully positive like a first child, vs death of a parent). Someone will get banged up, and sit out a 3 game road trip because the team is doing well and its worth it to let them rest...

MacDermind (ouch) is the 7th, MacDonald is the 8th and probably Barron would be a possible 9th guy. I fully expect them to sign somebody on the cheap at some point in the season. The Johnson PTO the only thing I can figure is MacFarland liked him in CBJ and convinced Sakic to give him a chance.