It does. Hopefully ownership cares at least a little bit how the optics look. Because it's gonna look really f***ing bad if that's who they pick. It's honestly bad enough if he's legitimately a candidate of interest.
Ehhh
The problem is how many trades were made until a week before the deadline last year? You’d have a crap roster until like game 60 or 65.
Plenty of former Pens to pick from.
There's something off about that guy. I don't think he processes the game at the NHL level. I think he's got solid tools (great size and willingness to use it, good skater for a big guy, okay hands), but I don't think he can read the play fast enough to consistently take advantage of those tools.
Yeah I don’t watch him much but it seems like he fundamentally doesn’t understand where to be offensively. He’s always in between being a net front guy or a high slot shooter. Sometimes he’ll just be standing on the goal line doing nothing.
Comtois is definitely the type we could use here.
Here is a list of RFAs. In addition to Poolparty, I wouldn’t think Gurianov, Blackwood, Comtois and Jost would join him as the guys making decent money and didn’t perform enough to get a QO.
Meh. My parents immigrated from Morocco to Canada when I was young. Dealt with my fair share of racism/xenophobia and still do.
One of those 3 I think would be fine on the 3rd line. Just whichever plays the best.
Think Poehling and O'Connor are pretty good 4th liners. Wouldn't mind seeing Poehling on the 3rd and even Doc. Think another year of experience helps them both out. I still feel like Poehling has some room to grow.
While I agree, would getting him for cheap and then using him as a defensive bottom 6 guy really be that bad? I I feel like Poolparty suffers from the fact that everyone is trying to make him justify his draft position, but he could probably be used and thrive just fine in someone's bottom 6.
The franchise tied their hitch to Sully. You reap what you sow....or, You make your bed, you're going to lay in it. .... Or, Chickens are coming home to roost. Take your choice.
Something to point out here is that while it's unlike to see an older player suddenly put it together Gaudreau is someone who recently did it. Dude was putting up Mike Sullivan numbers in Nashville and then it suddenly clicked for him in the right situation.
I think Gurianov did well enough to get a callback to Montreal. They need guys like him while they dump some of the older fodder.
Here is a list of RFAs. In addition to Poolparty, I would think Gurianov, Blackwood, Comtois and Jost would join him as the guys making decent money and didn’t perform enough to get a QO.
There's a lot of good names there for the bottom 6. I think you need to establish what you want the bottom 6 to be doing. As I've said countless times before, they need to abandon the: Scoring Line 1, Scoring Line 2, Defensive Line, Checking/Energy line model. That just will not work with the team we have and the league anymore. Load up 3 scoring scoring lines and force the other team to figure out how to control us.
You saw what Sully has done to multiple players and you're still brave enough to ask this. I admire your sticktoitiveness.
One thing to keep in mind is Gaudreau put it together in Minnesota because he was also given the opportunity to do so. He had over 50% offensive zone starts in Minny. Him (or any other player in the bottom six here) would have to "break out" while getting about 25 to 30% offensive zone starts because of how stubbornly idiotic Sullivan deploys his bottom six.
Puljujarvi intrigued me as a reclamation project from Edmonton, but after seeing him continue to suck on a team like Carolina (who I think has a pretty good track record of reviving players) I am over it.
