Their forwards aren't very good tbh. Nelson, Pageau and Lee have all played their best hockey already. None of those guys are going to get any better, Lee in particular is going to have a very ugly decline.
Barzal has his obvious strengths, but no team is going to win anything with him as their go to offensive player, at least not with the supporting cast that he has.
Personally, the actual players that encompass their defense aren't anything great either. Pelech-Pulock is a good match up pairing, but they're really a 2nd pair in ideal situations. Toews is nothing special, Mayfield sucks and has never taken a shift with out committing obstruction and then you have some old heads like Boychuk, Leddy, Hickey, etc. The system helps them be effective, but Trotz doesn't need an all world defense, his group in Washington wasn't great either but that team didn't win on the strength of their defense.
Dobson is a really, really good prospect, but he also may be the only chip they have to land a good scoring forward. It's gonna be really tough for them to make substantial moves this offseason with their cap and lack of assets and Lou is really the last guy I'd want running my team if I were in the position the Isles are in.
They look destined for dreaded middle-dom more so than they do for perennial contention.
