Ryan White is a perfect 4th liner. As long as you give him 4th line minutes and keep him off of your PK and PP2.
Unfortunately, he got 3rd line minutes for long stretches of the season, plays on the PK where he is an abomination and plays on PP2 where he is just a body in front of the net that brings nothing else to the unit (puck retrieval, playmaking, etc).
I would rather have White than VandeVelde, even though VdV is a better PKer, for intangibles and ability to bang home some pucks around the net, but VdV has 1 year left on his deal and White is a UFA. With Leier knocking on the door, do we really need to re-sign White? It's a tough call.
Mikkel Boedker was playing LW last night it looked like for some periods of time with the Avalanche. He is a terrible defensive player but put a line of -Boedker-Couts-Voracek out there and that's a great second line.
He might be the one player worth looking at in regard to free agency. Just need to see his price tag. He will eclipse 50 points this year and would provide depth and speed to the lineup.
If it's 5 years for 25 million, I wouldn't be too opposed to that deal. If it was longer or even more money I think you look elsewhere. Realistically he is probably worth around 4.5 over 4-5 years. He might get north of 5.5 even on the market. That's too steep for my taste.
Raffl has 1 PP point in 103 PP minutes. White has 3 in 48 minutes.
Raffl is not a better PP option.
White's actually been pretty a solid contributer on PP2. He's surprisingly good at being the net front presence and he's been involved in a lot of the goals that unit has scored this season. More than that, he plays a legit NHL game, whereas I feel both 78 & 76 are neither skilled nor smart enough to be anything other than middle of the road 4th liners, and they're only even that because they both work their tails off.
Neither 78 nor 76's contracts are reasons to not re-sign White, who's going to get what? A <500K raise at most? I also don't want to hand Leier a spot, I want him to come up and push a guy out of a spot, the same way Cousins has.
Most of all, White just really fits in with the identity the team has started to build. There's a certain swagger that a lot of our guys (Giroux, Simmonds, Ghost, Gudas, and Voracek when he's on) bring to the ice and guys like White and now Cousins fit in really nicely with that identity. It's the kind of thing that can make this team great when we get all the horses we need.
PP2 as a whole was completely awful in the time Raffl played on that unit, and that is the fault of the entire unit. The unit isn't scoring now because they replaced Raffl with White.
Replace White with Raffl on the current unit and you would see even better results than they have been having lately. That's my opinion.
PP2 as a whole was completely awful in the time Raffl played on that unit, and that is the fault of the entire unit.
White's d zone coverage is what kills me. I like my fourth liner being more savvy in his own end. He seems caught out of position a great deal. That said, I wouldn't be upset giving him a small raise until Leier, Ghoul, or someone like Bardeau can beat him out.
I forgot about Weal. He's played 13 NHL games all season after playing 92 AHL games last year.
The 1st unit was also bad when Raffl was on it at the start of the season. He really doesn't have a skill set that's suited to the PP.
You need a guy who's good at playing at the front of the net. They already have a bunch of other guys out there better suited to making zone entries than White or Raffl.
My point is that now that the rest of that unit has figured some things out, parking Raffl in front instead of White we would get the same, IF NOT BETTER results.
Excellent points! I do believe we'll see a better season from Laughton next year and a full season of Cousins should help. Also need to mention not wasting a roster spot on Vinny and Umby should assist in finding a moderately priced contributor as well.Why do people want to overspend on LWs who are bad defensively because that line will score 10 more goals but no longer be a shutdown unit? The reason Raffl is a good fit with Couts is he can skate, is strong, will forecheck and helps make that line a top defensive group.
If you want more scoring, get it by strengthening the 3rd and 4th lines, which can get you 10-20 goals, and upgrading the defense, which is going to happen. You can do that without trading a top prospect or sinking $5M a year into a player who doesn't fit the mentalite of this team (i.e. a pretty boy who likes to skate and shoot but not forecheck or play defense).
convince Mark Morris to coach the Phantoms.