TruGr1t
Proper Villain
- Jun 26, 2003
- 24,511
- 9,061
If Hoglander can be a piece you move to get a young 2nd pairing defenseman, you absolutely consider it. However, I do like the scoring depth we had early last year, when we were getting regular contribution from the bottom 6. When guys like Suter and Hoglander got promoted, we got basically nothing from the bottom 6 (doesn't help that Joshua got hurt and Lafferty/Blueger went ice cold). The team's lack of scoring depth hurts when the top 2 lines got shut down.
I think a Hog-Suter-Sherwood 4th line has a lot of potential and can contribute some key offense and destroy the other team's bottom end of the roster. This will be valuable, especially at a combined cap hit of like $4.5m. Hog may not be perfect (he is still young and can still improve) and his shooting percentage may regress, but for a contending team, he is a valuable depth piece on a low cap hit. Keep him, you worry about his next contract after the season (similar to Boeser).
**also, some of those middle 6 guys are inevitably going to hit a cold streak. Having guys like Suter and Hoglander on the 4th line to start the season allows Tocchet to change things up during the season.
You probably won't get a straight-up second-pair guy necessarily, but I'd consider parlaying him into a similarly aged defender on a similar development trajectory (ie. a younger, established NHLer that has had some success and potential upside). I have absolutely no clue about targets.