jbeck5
Registered User
- Jan 26, 2009
- 17,022
- 3,851
IMO we will improve three ways, hopefully anyway.
1. Internal growth. Greig, Pinto and Sanderson at the minimum will be improved players. To me Pinto and Greig will be solid second line players. Sanderson will improve and could even make the step to be one of the league's better #1 D. I think Stützle bounces back as well.
2. We become a more balanced team. Chychrun is gone. Hopefully we can replace him with a RD who gets the puck back from the other team quickly. Chychrun is a good player but he wasn't the right guy for this team.
3. We get solid coaching right out of the gate. Obviously depends on who we hire but this should be improved over years past.
Then there are things we can't control but could lead to improvement, like being extra healthy (eg. Norris and Chabot actually avoid injury) and, this is the big one, having our goalies make a f***ing save or two.
We will be better than we were last year, IMO.
There might be areas we are worse in though.
Like we could be more balanced, but less skilled...and then maybe all of a sudden we're defending well, but can't seem to hit the back of the net.
No one knows.
But the idea of replacing skilled players with grit, definitely does balance this team more...so it COULD benefit the team, but it could also mean with less skill, we have less puck possession and maybe struggle to make break out passes or to get the puck out of our net.
We can't just assume that every trade of roster or turnover of players will be a beneficial one. It could get worse.
Replacing chychrun and brannstrom with 2 big shut down D definitely makes us harder to play against. But does it mean a lot of plays are off the glass and out and back on the other teams stick?
Everyone is assuming that moves we make will improve us...but is anyone considering that moves we make can also make us worse?
Everyone is getting too positive around here where they're automatically assuming improvements...that's not how it works. Improvements aren't automatic.