The minute Staal re-signed, until it is so blatantly obvious that it creates a mutiny among fans because he is costing us games and woefully underperforming, then Staal will center a 2A/B equivalent line in terms of overall ice time. It may serve as a checking line role in terms of matchups. But he will not be getting 10 min a night ice time typical of a 4th line. He will play the tough d matchups and all the PK time needed as likely the #1 PK unit, which historically for Brindy means closer to 18-20 min a night... the key will be finding a winger for Staals line other than Fast to maybe increase the offense output of the line.
KK started out slow but was starting to show the experiment was working to develop him into being a newer, younger Staal like role and be one of the 2A/B centers.. we are not paying $5M this season for KK to be the 4th line center playing 10 min per night. Just don't see it even if something gets dropped in our lap by other teams calling us up. I definitely don't think we will call other teams asking for a center. The only chance of that is if the player is known to play wing just as well as they play center with the expectation they will play wing if they come here and only play center long enough to take draws as the backup when KK or Staal are kicked out of the circle first.
I think the 4th line center job is Drury's to lose. Unless he is included in any trade package for the other moves we are trying to make, I think we are focused on improving scoring through the backend or adding scoring wingers that can finish more consistently than last year's results.
