They said he'd miss about a month when they announced his injury.
And happened suddenly at practice. More "resting" the vets? Letting The Guentzel - Malkin - Rust line take over and become what it is today?
I thought that at first but when we started struggling he would have been back.
Gonna be tough to have a 3rd line of Bjugstad/Hornqvist if that's their plan again. Horny doesnt need alot of time to settle in but NB only had 10 games this year and wont be back til Feb? Not to mention both of them being RW in case we wanted to try them with McCann at C. So that wont work. And it might be too late by then to trade Bjugstad. Unless there's a GM who really liked him over the years and will base it off that. That is the good thing with younger players who had a solid pedigree. Not just being drafted in the first round but Nick was great after that in his final year in juniors. Then kept it going. Before injuries hit and some inconsistencies like AG has(moving from Center to wing to Center to wing).
If plan is to keep Bjugs. Then try him at RW1 and RW3. Id say RW4 with Blueger and Tanev but wont happen. Hornqvist would be there before him.
Or go all offense...
Zucker- Crosby - Toffoli
Guentzel - Malkin - Rust
Galychenyuk - McCann - Hornqvist
Kahun - Bjugstad - Tanev
Trade Simon, 3rd , prospect ( Militec type who we have plenty of) for Toffoli and Alec Martinez. Trade ZAR and Schultz for Zucker.
JR takes away Simon and ZAR from Sully. Toffoli can leave thru FA after going on a tear and getting paid big. But we have Zucker longterm. And Alec Martinez to be our vet dman next season while replacing Schultz this year.
Dumo - Letang
Marino - Martinez
Great top 4.
Instead of us spending years of first round picks to add to our lineup at the deadlines, we have RFAs each year we can move with a mid round pick to help with landing a rental. We arent going to end up keeping ZAR/Simon over others like McCann, Kahun, and then Poulin, etc...anyway.
AG gets 9g 12 a in playoffs with that 3rd line(McCann 8g 10a, Hornqvist 6g 9 a). Bjugstad gets 6g 6a , Tanev 4g 6a and Kahun 7g 3a. Beat that bottom six.
Re-sign AG at 4 mil x 3. Trade Bjugstad for 1st round + at draft. Atter winning our 4th cup. Use that and our first to trade up to top 10 and get that game changing elite prospect.
Boom.