This end of year surge has definitely given me more optimism for next year, which makes me want to be a bit more aggressive in trying to build a playoff team. Dubas had mentioned that the Guentzel trade was also focused on giving them flexibility to add in the off-season, and the team playing well to end the year definitely gives more of a justification to do that.
Personally, I think you try to move Rakell and Jarry this off-season and target a RW upgrade for Malkin first and foremost. I really like Smith-Eller-Puustinen as the 3rd line and O'Connor-Crosby-Rust seems like it has enough talent to work. For the 4th line, just let the young guys battle it out and let the best players win. Acciari will be on that line, probably as the 4C, but just let whoever performs the best take the spots.
You'd be shooting for this kind of basis, with eventually letting the young kids eventually replace guys like Eller, Acciari and Smith and bumping O'Connor to a more appropriate role:
O'Connor-Crosby-Rust
Bunting-Malkin-XXXXX
Smith-Eller-Puustinen
Poulin-Acciari-Puljujarvi
Pettersson-Karlsson
XXXXX-Letang
Graves-St. Ivany
Nedjelkovic-Blomqvist
By the end of the year, you'd hope at least one of Koivunen, Ponomarev, Yager or Pickering can force their hand into a notable role. Maybe it's Ponomarev pushing Eller to the 4C spot, Pickering taking the 2nd pair LD spot or Yager pushing O'Connor to the bottom-6, but that's the goal.