1) Aho has not looked good 2 games at C now. Still only preseason, but hasn’t looked good. Wallmark will likely make the team because of it.
2) Teravainen is going through the motions. Maybe because it’s preseason, but he’s invisible.
IMO, these two are connected. RBA is experimenting with a lot of stuff early in the preseason, but I think TT and Aho will end up together. Roddy is just trying to see if anything else "clicked." I think it's safe to say it hasn't. It's probably not fair to have tested Aho at center without his security blanket on his left wing, but whatever. We probably should give Aho a game or two with TT before we conclude the Aho-to-center project a failure.
But after three preseason games, I think we're starting to see what we have. As nice as it's been to win, our center issues are clearly not going to fade neatly into the background. If Aho does need to be a winger again, the lines just do not shake out neatly. For the purposes of this exercise, I'm going to go with a center group of Staal, Necas, Wallmark and Martinook. It's not pretty, but it's what we have.
Zykov - Staal - Svechnikov
Teravainen - Necas - Aho
Ferland - Wallmark - Williams
Foegele - Martinook - McGinn
This puts the situation in pretty glaring relief. Five rookies and only *one* experienced center. I love our players, especially the young guys, but it's going to be tough for any team constructed like this to compete over 82 games. Waddell really needs to work some magic in the coming days and weeks. (Martinook played most of 2016-17 at center for Arizona and had a pretty decent season (11-14-25) but the jury is clearly still out on him as a center.)
On defense, I really just don't like Justin Faulk. I don't think he pairs well with de Haan. I don't think he pairs well with anyone. He's Skinner of the defense. In my perfect world, he's traded with a guy like Saarela and a pick for Duchene, but that won't happen. In my next reality, we dress seven d-men like Lavi did almost all of 2005-06 and use Faulk as an offensive/power-play specialist and maybe stick him with de Haan if we fall behind early. (If we do this, I have no problem sitting McGinn or Martinook on a fairly regular basis.
Slavin - Hamilton
de Haan - Pesce
Fleury - van Riemsdyk
Faulk