I've been mulling over whether or not we should sent Philp down as it seems the sensible thing both given his time away from the game, but also waiver exemption, but I've decided we should keep him up, he's outplayed all of his direct competitors and he checks the boxes of the things we need Right handed, good on the draw, sound defensively, and should be an asset on the PK.
We also got off to a rough start last year and definitely don't want to repeat that as it is taxing playing catch up and we also had a short summer, so I think putting our best foot forward out the gate should be the plan.
My opening night 4th line would be Podkolzin - Philp - Perry; while one could fairly argue Lavoie outplayed Perry in the preseason, players like Perry don't tend to lose their spot based on pre-season it will have to be on regular season performance and also Podz and Philp are inexperienced so having a mentor for the line isn't the worst idea.
My opinion on Hoffman is he's looked good enough to earn a contract, but I don't think he fills any need on this team, we don't need more one-way scorers who aren't great away from the puck, I'd skip on him. With respect to Dermott, I've liked Gleason's game more than him and while I think his game is a bit more polished than Dineen I can't say he's demonstrated he is strictly better, I'd lean to not signing him, but also you can't have too much D depth, so it wouldn't be the worst thing if we did.