What addition by subtraction are you talking about last season? Dewey had the best CF% on the team last year and had the most points on the team among defensemen despite playing only 39 games. I seriously wish that Kopi, Doughty and Quick were traded just so everybody would stop imagining storylines of them actively sabotaging the team. It kind of sucks.
You’re taking it too literally. It was addition because Todd had to spread the ice time and it forced players to step up. They became more than the sum of their parts. They of course would have been better with Drew but only if he played sensible minutes and didn’t get inserted back in playing 26-28 minutes.
It’s the same with Kopi, if he wasn’t there the minutes would be spread more evenly although I expect Danaults would go up significantly.
Deployment is fast becoming the major issue here. The fact Durzi is getting another look on the middle pair is insane. Björnfot immediately balanced the lineup and yet it’s being messed about with, unless he’s hurt I don’t get it. Durzi us a #6 pp specialist at best. Whilst I’d put both Spence and Clarke in instead of him, it also sets him up to fail.
I like Todd and I want to see him succeed but he has the blinkers on and people around him are clearly blowing smoke up his rear end. It’s the same with the pp. The 2nd unit moves it around far better but gets minimal opportunity. I don’t know if Todd is being stubborn or if Kopitar has too much pull and insists on 75% pp time… half the time Kopitar and Doughty look like they are playing their own system at a slower pace and are being allowed to. I expected it to take some time for them to adjust to Hiller but whilst that’s happening, they still get the pp time. I know Fox talks about the pp being a big improvement and it is, but only because of how prolific the second unit and Vilardi have been. The second unit plays like they have 100% buy in, the top one does not.
Forget systems (its about who imposes their game over the other team first), if they get deployment right this is a play-off team, even with Durzi at #6. If the get Clarke and/or Spence instead of Durzi and with Byfield back they could make some noise in the post season. No we are not contenders yet and the goaltending may kill us BUT they could build a seriously good platform with the development of the younger guys, IF they get deployment right.