While the goal scoring is an unknown, he was a strong shutdown guy who did a pretty good job at preventing goals in a heavily defensive role. So ineffective is hardly accurate. He did his main job well, especially last year.
In a less defensive role playing with ROR? He's never had that before. What i do know is this team can't afford anyone who is a clear cut guarantee to upgrade our scoring anyways, and looking at the kind of depth Cup winning teams had in the past, we would only need a couple more goals from our bottom 6 to match... and I would hope that something they are likely capable of doing.
The major discrepancy comes in the top 6. Our big 4 had 12 goals combined in 7 games last year. Bunting had 1 goal in 6 games. Year before, Nylander had 5 goals. Matthews, Marner, and Hyman combined for 2. In 21 man games. Starting to see the problem? These guys are paid to score and they didn't score. Bottom 6 certainly could have provided a few more goals, and given how close things were, that may have made the difference. But they generally did their job. We did well limiting Tampa's top guys last year. We are not winning many series with those goal numbers from our top players. Not when other teams' top guys are scoring.
