One thing I’ll say, some teams in their “championship windows” so-to-speak have had their best shots (and successful shots) at winning cups with the up-and-coming stars/future core players on ELC’s playing meaningful minutes on 3rd and/or 4th lines. It provides significant scoring depth at a cheap price which is hard for other teams that don’t have that option to compete with. Bones doesn’t seem to see it that way though, he has a set-in-stone idea of the “role” that the 3rd and 4th lines “should” have (example: a “checking” line, a “defensive” line). This is an old school mentality and it has been successful in the past, so by no means am I saying it can’t work. But given the assets that this team currently has, going with the Perfetti in-the-line-up option and trying to have a 3rd and/or 4th line that has an edge offensively that other teams may not be able to create is a route that should be considered too — That approach has also worked for other cup championship teams too. And given that our top line isn’t a Mckinnon/mcdavid/matthews type led line (all due respect to Scheifele - I like him but he’s not at that level), it would perhaps make sense to look at adding 91 to the 3rd or 4th line instead of sitting him in the press box.
Well Bones's underutilization of him and the back half will ensure we have him cheap for the next two years. Maybe that was the plan.