Well for starters having Comtois as an enforcer is not only a waste of his talents it's obviously not effective. Drew can actually fight as well as having some offensive skill.
We have a huge lack of physicality on both ends
Drew's skating can't keep up right now. He's still a work in progress as a converted forward.
Anaheim has three physical forwards in Carrick, Comtois, and Jones. Problem is we're not seeing much of physicality from Comtois and Jones that makes a consistent difference on the ice. Carrick is still recovering from hip surgery.
Comtois' talents are still an enigma. We still don't see 2020-21 Comtois talent, but Comtois playing the physical role who can chip in once in a while is a better transition than the Comtois of last year. If Comtois can't find his offensive game, then he needs to change his game to remain in the NHL. Maybe it'll come to him in time just like Terry needed a few years to breakout.
We have a big, speedy winger in Jones who I thought would bring back some physicality, but he's been quite quiet in the regular season compared to the pre-season. Sadly, he's not good enough to be on the PK. In fact, he spends more time in the sin bin than he does on the PK.
The team will be getting back in Carrick around November. We could use his leadership skills in that bottom-6 to increase the physical play from both Comtois and Jones. Carrick has the "want to" be physical while Comtois and Jones are still learning it.
A player I want to see exert more of his physicality is Lundestrom. He's strong, fast, and defensive minded. He's got the build to be a physical (like Lindholm physicality, not Des physicality), but it feels he's gone meek this year.
As bad as our lack of physicality is today, our significant problem on the team happens to be the lack of a Special Teams unit. We can't score on the PP and we're inconsistent at defending the PK. The team has more offensive weapons at their disposal now, but are far more inept on the PP. That's scarier than our lack of physicality right now b/c we have the offensive talent on the team right now. The physicality helps a lot more on the PK, but we don't have those talents at the moment.
With this unbalanced and soft roster, I expected us to be in a lot of shootouts. We're not keeping up offensively, which makes not having physicality on the blueline look far worse than it already is. The hope is that this lack of physicality is temporary, like for the next couple of seasons temporary. Anaheim has some physical players in tow that you'll like in 6'3 C Gaucher, 6'3 RD Helleson, 6'2 LD Thrun, 6'3 LD Hinds, and 6'5 RD Warren. Three of those five were acquired under Verbeek, which is why I say the lack of physicality is temporary. It sucks that it's gotta be like this, where the future is more important than today for Verbeek.
