Stammertime91
TBL: TEAM OF THE CENTURY
I don't think the team plans on keeping Lilleberg down. I think we are going to see Sergachev at RD. If not, utilizing them to hit +18mins a night will again be a thing. There's no protecting Sergachev necessarily at this point. It now just becomes a "matchup" thing where we utilize McD/Cernak as the shutdown pair.It's not THAT much better, but it is probably better, andit's cheaper, and there would be at least one player coming back to replace Sergachev. While also giving us the dollars to bring Stamkos back. Hard to imagine not being a better team for the next two years if we aren't spending 8.5 on a 3rd pairing D who's not even on PP1.
I agree, its crazy money on the backend, but that worked. Like, we know that part of the formula was fantastic. Four of the six are together again. Raddysh/Crozier/whoever is pretty lateral in comparison to Rutta/Schenn/Bogo as well. So, it kinda just matters up front what we can do. Which, we haven't suffered offensively over the course of two years, either.