Being extremely generous to your cause, say deleting Fiala costs 5 wins to the team, without a replacement. that's 10 points, and oh no, we are still a 103 point team. Even if you attribute 10 wins solely to Fiala (LOL) and give 0 to a replacement player, that still puts us right in the middle of the playoff hunt. Kaprizov got better and better as the season went on and the guys that we hoped would grow their games, all did last year with obvious potential to continue to grow their games. JEE is a monster and so is that whole line, all three were severely injured in the playoffs and still were the most dangerous line some games.
Teams have keyed hard on that line since it was formed, we also key in on other teams top lines with GREEF, meaning we already have two lines that are going to be winning their matchups most nights that take up a majority of the minutes. The remaining lines can break even or even lose their matchups and we are still more likely to win the games, but I personally think those lines will continue to bring a lot to the table like they did last year.
Goaltending was extremely mediocre already last year, any change at the position has potential to be better without a lot of downside risk, as replacement level is already an improvement performance wise.
Implosion as a base case is ludicrous, off season gang is out in full force currently, remember the doom and gloom over the last two off seasons followed by record breaking seasons?
