My thoughts on the potential Del Mastro trade (sorry for the incoming novel) -
The people who are telling me about the Del Mastro stuff told me about prior things that came true (such as Pastujov trade) so I have no reason to not believe them (Saggy included), But I'll still have to see it to believe it. Must have some deep seeded trust issues.. haha. But in the case it does happen (told it's pretty much done) it's definitely a massive move & one I did not expect at all after Kyrou's addition.
Del Mastro is argubaly the best Dman in the OHL right now. He's an animal. Hes like the junior version of Hedman if you will as guys that size shouldn't be able to skate, move & handle the puck as well as he does. Can completely dominate a game in every way.
It would make our defence outrageously good. Probably be the best in the entire league (at least on paper).. Be no fun at all trying to enter the zone vs 6'5 Mast, 6'5 Romeo & 6'4 Del Mastro who all skate well for that size. Be a nightmare actually lol. Ritchie & Kyrou would be so free to activate all the time which they do so well & if he stays, Dillingham as a real physical defensive defenceman would be one of the better "3rd" pair D. Hoover, Fischer would be incredible depth if anyone ever misses time.
It would be hard to imagine it not costing Martone honestly. We can only offer two 2nds & no 3rds. A player of his caliber almost always costs 2-3 2nds, 2-3 3rds + a player.. With no 3rds available MISS would be crazy to do it without Martone involved.
That's where it leaves me a bit torn. Clearly we are ALL-IN. No holding back. I can live with that. I don't see them being good the next few years anyway so why not really suck lol. But, I really don't think a superstar D is a need w/Mast, Kyrou, Ritchie, Romeo, Dillingham, Fischer/Hoover already here. It's hard to argue with building a super defence but it would almost feel like overkill to me.
Especially with such a glaring hole in our top-6 the need there is so much larger than on the backend. I'll say Filak has been a very good 2C since being elevated there so maybe they feel comfortable with him there & I am fine with him there. He does a ton of good & will do all the heavy lifting for Vilmanis, Pastujov on L2 while chipping in himself. I just don't love Lantz as the 1C. he's been awesome & does a ton of good but 90% of championship teams tend to have truly elite 1Cs & he isn't that.
If Del Mastro is the big move & their final one, I still without a doubt would have championship aspirations for this club. It would be a stacked team that could 100% go all the way. It would just haunt me forever if they got into RD2/RD3 vs another elite team & I/we gotta watch Sikic miss 4 grade A looks in game 7, Vilmanis miss the net on golden opportunities because they didn't add another guy who can put the puck in consistently..
Now all this won't matter if Gaudreau doesn't find his game. We will have nothing left to trade so they will be putting everything on his back which could completely & utterly blow up in there face. Maybe when he returns they should give him a 2 week break or something to try & regroup/reset because at the end of the day he's a kid & his confidence is absolutely shot to hell & only getting worse. I know he's fairly active on social media & unfortunately ppl are absolute assholes online & when a kid struggles at these type of tournaments it gets really ugly (ppl already flooded his IG with garbage) .. I truly hope he can ignore it all, play well in the games he gets in & whether he is starting or not winning gold would be a great achievement that hopefully gives him a much needed boost.