Mesar is in its D+2. What he's doing in the OHL at this point is almost irrelevant.
Everything you just said is absolutely true... which fuels my "anger" (i'm not angry for real) because our point total reflects something else and puts us way too high at this moment. We can't give back the points we are collecting... they are just there.
We just extended him, he’s not going anywhere
It depends what they told him. The contract may have been agreed to with the proviso that if the right offer is made he will be traded. Someone has to go. Primeau is not being traded. Allen was probably promised that he wouldn't be traded and probably no one wants him. Monty is the most likely.
To me, that contract says more that they committed to him. He's getting paid 1 million this year, that's a steal for any team and his future contract would not be our concern.
I agree 1st and 2nd would be tough (but not impossible as still 60 games to be played and only 9 pts back) but 3rd OA is very much possible. It's in fact likely as long as we stop getting those useless loser pts.
We are missing a few key players. Which young guy except maybe Harris and Xhekaj are not better than last season? Anderson, Gally, and others regressing isn't really indicative of anything as Hughes brought in zero of the vets except Monahan. Cole and Nick are both pacing for career highs even after being separated. Guhle looks to potentially be a cornerstone D.
Suzuki is not on pace to hit even 70pts man
He’s earned it. Has the potential to be a steal of a deal too.
There was talk of him moving up to first overall at the beginning of the year. He’d be a really good fifth overall. That’s encouraging.
The injuries are unreal. No doubt we’d be way further ahead offensively. Defensively, I always figured we’d get crushed. Tough to say how good we are when we keep losing top six players. Newhook going down just sucks.
To me Suzuki is a playmaker and his numbers will always be limited to how good his linemates are to an extent. Huberdeau went from 115 points to 55 based on linemates and systems. Get a functional pp, more than one goal scored and see how much his numbers change. Even with all the huffing and puffing huberdeau is second on the Flames in points this year. He cannot create anything when their forwards can't finish plays that Barkov, Reinhart, verhaggy and others could.
If it's BPA by a fair amount they probably should. If it's close take the forward because there is no guarantee they will be able to move excess defensemen and it might not be the d they would like to move.
But on the flip side Anderson won't stay at 0 goals, Caufield will probably go on a goal scoring streak at some point, etc... Unless the injuries really start to pile up I'm not sure we should expect a massive drop off like last year. We're not a good team but I think we're better then we were the last two years and so we shouldn't expect to have that much worse of a record compared to those years. Something like .430 - .440 for the rest of the season seems more likely which will drop us a number of spots but not sure it will be enough to get us into the bottom-5.
Good playmakers are the ones who dictate the production of their line. It's strange to flip it around like that. Joe Thornton was the one who stuck plumbers next to in order to get them going, he didn't need special linemates to help him. I don't think Suzuki is particularly consistent either. I like how he plays a lot - smart, uptempo, etc. But I wouldn't call him consistent. I don't have any comment on Huberdeau - the Flames are in a tough situation and I don't think the exceptional circumstances in which Huberdeau finds himself is easily compared to Suzuki.
Hopefully this coming draft puts to bed the notion of "BPA". There is no such thing in a reliable, universal sense. The Habs should not pick a defenseman next year unless he's head and shoulders above the other prospects available at that spot.
