This tells me that Murray and Tyutin aren't coming back any time soon and we're planning on trading someone at the deadline.
It was mentioned in the Portzline write up and I said it from the very beginning, Cotton is a bigger, faster, younger, cheaper version of Wisniewski at this point. Their individual offensive and defensive traits can be argued, but to me, Cotton's passing/vision, shot, overall defensive ability along with the disparity in overall mobility make him literally a better player than Wiz. And we save $4 mil.
“@smitchcd: #CBJ pairs: Erixon-Wisniewski; Johnson-Prout; Leopold-Savard. Connauton extra.â€
Looks like as of now he is the number 7 Dman.
Wow. 3 #6-7's, 1 #5-6 and 2 #2 guys. Throw in a Gibbons-Cracknell-Tropp 3rd line and I think I know the answer to why we sucked last year...
He projects a Connauton - Prout 3rd pair. Obviously Tyutin, JJ, Murray, and Savard will play. So by that count, he thinks Goloubef is the 7th D, but most folks think Cody has passed up Prout on the depth chart.
Cotton enjoyed a nice bump in production after coming to the CBJ, but he put up 2-4-6 in his last 28 games. Once the "new scenery" effect wore off, he really didn't do much offensively. And there are still some questions about his defense.
I hate having to bring this up all the time but Prout(and Falk) play a completely different game then Golobeuf(and the rest of the D). Prout and Falk bring an element to the game that our other D cannot. We can debate the effectiveness of the "intimidation factor" (especially when he's playing bad) but when Prout is out there guys
will think twice about accelerating hard through the middle of the ice coming out of their zone looking for a hail mary pass. They
will think twice before crashing the net hard potentially taking out Bob. They
will think twice before taking a run or a cheap shot at Joey, Cam, or the Golden Nekande. That doesn't happen with Golobeuf out there. And really, Connauton and Prout really do seem to compliment each other pretty well. I LOVE Prout's shot and think its not talked about near enough. Having Cotton and Prout
BOMBING shots on the ice together will be a treat to watch.
"New scenery effect" or "guys coming back and getting less icetime effect"?