The plan outline for the off season.
Get a top 6/middle 6 forward. How many times do we have to score 0 or 1 goals in big games to realize we need more scoring? Maybe it involves trading Nylander but you need to improve the offense.
Solve the goaltending. Whether thats resigning Campbell or something else thats a big priority. Find a way to get rid of Mrazek's contract. He's better than he showed but a 3.8 with our structure makes no sense.
For the back end, I think the best plan to start the year is give the younger guys big roles. Let Lyb walk and resign Gio. Figure out if you want to keep Muzzin or trade him. I'm fine either way. Trade Holl for a pick or two. Keefe has shown even with average D core like when he first got here, he can make them competent defensively. If you realize an upgrade is needed, you do that at the deadline
I don't think it necessarily needs to come from a "scorer" though. Our big guns did show up (for the most part, it was still a little bit inconsistent but it was no different for the other side and various other top players in the playoffs this year), but it was Nick Paul who was ultimately able to find a way to put a few in. Nick Paul is not a guy you count on to score goals. We can even look at a guy like David Kampf, who only had 2 goals in 7 games (which were also his only two points), but they were some timely goals.
Three things I would like to focus on:
1) Giving the 4th line an identity. Blackwell, Spezza, and Kase were not necessarily "bad", and Spezza did bring value to the locker room, but on the ice, it was pretty much like their job was to kill time until other guys came on. That is not really an identity and it doesn't cut it in the playoffs IMO.
2) Giving everyone a special teams role, including the 4th line. No more being satisfied playing 8 ES minutes and then calling it a night. 2 PP units is 10 players, 2 PK units is 8 players. That is 18 skaters if there is no overlap between the units. Now we are a team that uses Marner on the PK, and I think that is fine, but I think we also saw Keefe use 3 pairs of forwards on the PK anyways so that accounts for some of the overlap involving guys like Marner.
Rielly/Sandin are your PP QB's. Bunting, Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Tavares are 5/8 of your PP forwards. One of the last 3 spots likely goes to the new top 6 guy, and the other 2 can go to Engvall, Kase, or the 4th liners (which could include Spezza or Anderson). We could also run some 2 D looks. On PK, we still have Marner, Kampf, Engvall, Kase. Anderson could be another guy who overlaps between PK and PP, and one of the other 4th liners we add will likely have to be a PKer.
3) Finding a new 2LW for Tavares' line has to be less about finding a guy who is good in isolation, and therefore more pricey, and more about a guy who can compliment Tavares properly. The past few years, Tavares has had a tendency to just do all of the heavy lifting on his line in terms of fighting in front of the net and winning puck battles. That is great, but he needs someone on his line who can do the same and allow Tavares to get into space as much as possible so he can still use his skill and goal-scoring ability. Tavares has been playing like a glorified Hyman far too often because nobody (especially Nylander) was really willing or able to do what he could do in tight areas. I think it is still important for Tavares to do that, but he was tougher to stop when he was also able to play around the hashmarks a little bit and forced Tampa to constantly change how they covered him, rather than constantly making it a wrestling match.
IDK who makes the most sense from a contract perspective, but a guy like Niederreiter would probably make the most sense. He is not a guy who should really command any kind of eye-popping contract after effectively pacing for 20 goals and 45 points over the past 3 years (with an even more disappointing playoff record) and is entering his 30's, but he could play off well with Tavares and Nylander on a 2nd line. It is not going to be one of those lines that looks for stretch passes and breakaways unless Nylander is the one doing it, because Niederreiter and Tavares have never had that kind of blistering speed, but they will cycle the crap out of you and that is a different look for teams to have to handle.
