here’s the stamkos effect on our top 2 lines this season. have fun preds
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Yeah looks like his even strength ice time will have to be a little protected. Good thing we have guys like O'Reilly and Forsberg that are good defensively. I do expect his even strength numbers and even his powerplay numbers to drop some, especially early. It's also the reason his pay dropped some. If we can get 55-65 points though, he makes us a much better team, especially on the powerplay.
We needed more goals at both even and moreso the powerplay. So we signed the winger with the 7th most even strength goals in Marchessault, to go along with the guy that scored the 5th most even strength goals in Forsberg and then signed the defenseman that is 2nd in even strength goals over the last 2 seasons. Then we signed the guy with 3rd most powerplay goals in Stamkos, who will now play with our top 5 powerplay defenseman. And while yest that's not what Stamkos had to play with last season. It's still pretty damn good. All and all I love what they did. They add players to ride out the peak years of Saros, Josi and Forsberg. And yes, it's likely going to be short lived, 3 years is likely. However, we have very good, very deep prospect pool, so in 3 years some of the young guys will come in and start to take over the reigns. Years 4 and 5 are likely going to see a big drop before these young guys completely start taking over. So we draft higher those two years and add higher end prospects to an already very young core.
