I kind of feel like its Marner or bust at forward. Simply put these kind of guys rarely come up in UFA. I think its worth taking a shot, but I sort of agree with you on the note of us not being the most compelling team for him. The only thing I think we have is that we are still very close to family for him, but in a much more forgiving market. I feel like the Ehlers, Boesers, and Bennets are players I like but they are going to be to expensive for what they bring. Outside of taking a shot at Marner I'm largely ok going with the kids at forward.
Defense has to be addressed. I don't care if its via UFA and a guy like Gavrikov or via trade, but I don't think is ok to continue failing here. We need someone to pair with Seider or someone good enough to anchor the 2nd pair and allow Ed to go with Seider. If Yzerman had landed a decent top 4 last year I think we make the playoffs. We are never going to be an elite offensive team (without basically not playing D like 2 years ago), but I think our offense has been significantly been held back by how bad our D has been. We need to be able to activate our skilled dmen to get numbers in the O zone.