For me, the most frustrating part about this team is the fact that they actually could have a pretty damn solid team if they just played the right players / deployed players correctly.
These guys were dominating earlier in the season when they were playing Clarke, Thomas, Helenius, and Lee.
Lewis returns from injury, Doughty returns from injury... and we get worse. Funny, it's almost like this team is better when they utilize young players who can actually skate as opposed to 35+ year old vets who can barely keep up with the pace of play in today's NHL.
Clarke should never sit again.
Moverare should be the 7th d man (he plays if they run 11/7 or if there's an injury). This is nothing against Moverare - we just need Clarke playing and we know no one else is coming out of the lineup.
No more Edmundson-Doughty pair. And bring Doughty's minutes down into the low 20s so you can spread out the ice time and ensure Clarke gets at least 14+ mins a night.
Get Danault off PP2 and play both Clarke and Spence on that unit (along with Byfield, Moore, and Foegele). Let Akil Thomas play some damn games.
Do those things and this team is instantly significantly better. Then you trade for a scoring winger and a 4C with size and the team becomes even better. Adding a right shot scoring winger wouldn't just improve our top 6 and PP1, it allows them to move other players down the lineup to improve depth. Say you add a guy like Rakell (for the sake of the hypothetical).. All of the sudden your PP units go from:
PP1: Laferriere, Kopitar, Kempe, Fiala, Doughty
PP2: Byfield, Moore, Foegele, Danault, Spence
To...
PP1: Rakell, Kopitar, Kempe, Fiala, Doughty
PP2: Byfield, Laferriere, Turcotte, Spence, Clarke
So much deeper and more skilled than what we're currently doing.
Then you add a 4C with size (let's just hypothetically say Kevin Stenlund from Utah) and instead of Lewis playing 4C / running 11/7 you can actually roll 4 lines and have a 4th line of:
Jeannot - Stenlund - Lewis (with this line ideally only getting about 8 mins a night)
It could really be that simple if we just had a management group / coaching staff that was half competent.
Instead we have to watch them constantly f**k it up and we're left feeling like Matt Damon in Good Will Hunting watching the professor who SHOULD know more than us struggle with a math problem we've already figured out. It's unbelievably frustrating.