I just don't see how this team expects to survive another year of the pressure. More than any of the actual lineup considerations, I think that the narratives of choking and failure are going to eat them alive and we're going to have a regular season of regression. We've stumbled out of the gate in October a few years running now, all it takes is for that stumble to carry on into November and we're in real trouble of actually missing the playoffs. We've got a lot of talent in our big 4, but we're not deep, our defense has basically crumbled with Brodie regressing and Gio burning out, not to mention Muzzin's LTIRement. Brodie probably recovers, but Rielly, Brodie, McCabe, Liljegren, Timmins, Schenn (hopefully) is absolutely awful as a D core. We desperately need that Muzzin replacement. Our goaltending is suspect yet again, Samsonov looked alright but is far from proven and a Sammy-Woll tandem is another year of shoestrings and hope in net.
We're basically stuck with needing to overpay a top4 D in UFA. Orlov would be perfect, but he wants crazy money so we're going to have to make do. Our 5th highest paid forward is Jarnkrok, there's no offensive depth to speak of. We're basically pinning our hopes on Knies (or Robertson lol), great way to ease the rookie in.
This is clearly a pessimist take, some things will go better than I've forecast. Maybe one of Liljegren or Timmins takes a step forward (Lilly looked great most of last year before struggling down the stretch). But this team so clearly lives and dies on the big 4 and all they've ever done when it matters is die. 40m on forwards who are all due for raises is killing us. Shake up the core, get a new piece or two to change the leadership dynamic and spend more cap space on the middle six and 2nd pair.