That’s great take.
The question is - how our prospect pool was lookin when we draft McLeod and how it looks now. How our roster pool was lookin and how it’s lookin now.
We drafted McLeod when we already know Gelinas isn’t good player. Moore was Moore with his good and bad sides of his game, Merril played exactly like Merril every year and Devils were exposed him year after and were very lucky, Helgeson and Scarlett were our best defensemen in Albany and Devils did try Seth on the big ice. He wasn’t impressive) Wecould say that in Zacha draft our defensive prospect pool was promising, not year after.
And Devils made trade back. There were a good chance to draft Chychrun or Mcavoy.
today we have an obvious picture that we have Bratt - top-6 player, and Kukka… middle-6 player. I think Bastian is great for the fourth liner. I would say Great. He is good positionaly, he is good forechecker and he makes good and smart simple decisions with the puck, he is very hard puckbattler. This is how fourth liner must to look like. And guys like that aren’t very often product. People who think we can easily find another one just forgot how long we were lack of guy like that. Who is tough, who can be competitive enough. And the most important thing - he has a chemistry. That’s most important thing in hockey. yes we must add rwinger here and now. But we have Holtz and Mercer who are very promising prospects. Much more promising than our defensive prospect. We have Clarke who was +/- one of the best on AHL ice. Even Thompson can turn into something if he will work on himself a lot.
I wrote before that development of young forward is a long way that never guarantee we can trade him for good defenseman after.
What we have with defense… funny question) Smith, whom I don’t wanna play against speedy aggressive skilled players. And Severson - our best defenseman who was never be a good nhl defenseman in protecting breakaways, zone playing and on the slot. Prospect pool? Bahl is big and strong in puck battles but he doesn’t understand where he should be. He can grow into 2nd pair great shot down guy, but he isn’t for now. Okhotyuk was lookin good in defensive game in ahl, but I can’t say he makes right decisions when the puck is on his stick. I would say I like Vukoevic too, but both didn’t produce much. Vukoevic had a good start but after he doesn’t have a lot of points. And we don’t know how they will play against real competitive players. Walsh? God, no. No. No. Butcher is breaking my heart all the time. Walsh is exactly like Butcher clone. Mukha is interesting, but he is raw and his weakness is play with the puck under pressure. We don’t know how he live with that on the short rink.
I really hope someone or a couple of someone’s will be Nhl defensemen. But we don’t have real signs of that. And it’s a freakin full line of players. In modern NHL teams with good defensive lines are much more successful than teams with good offensive line and bad defensive line.
And the most fun time for me. Dallas 2015. 2nd best scoring team. No playoff. Dallas 2020. 3rd worst scoring team, but second best GA. Stanley cup final. If we will remember offensive and defensive line of Stanley cup finalist Nashville, islanders success, etc. this is how modern hockey works. Team must have great defense to win, team must have great everything to try to win Cup. We svck at defense. If we want playoff and success, we Must draft defensemen, find them on the markets and trades. No matter how much pucks they score in COVID year. If Defenseman will be great in his work - he is what we need to have. If our scouts think that Edvinsson is a future top-4 D, no matter how much pucks he will score, we need him and he is what we must to draft. No matter how impactful Eklund or Guenther will be. Because we will never have top-4 defenseman in his prime if we will not draft him.
Btw if Fitz has an option to trade Zacha/Bratt/4th pick for young good defenseman I think he must to make it. But I don’t think this is gonna happen.