I mean we had a winning record without scheif and Wheeler haha... and you gloss over ehlers and Appleton injury and Mike eyssimont in our top six replaced copp but hey whatever right...
Chevy picked the same guys off the scrap heap that he always does - we just have a coach that doesn't make excuses now...
Ehlers missed a quarter of the season last year too, and they didn’t have Appleton until just prior to the deadline, but as you say ‘whatever’.
The third line last year, was Lowry, and whatever filler they could throw up there with him; Poganski, Reichel, Vesalainen, etc.
Poganski played 16 games of his 22 career NHL games, and had no points. This year he can’t crack the Kraken. Reichel played 13 games (2 points), and hasn’t sniffed the NHL. Vesalainen was a regular, getting shifts up and down the lineup, and had 3 points in 53 games. This year he is on his 2nd team in Europe, and doing little again. Gustafson couldn’t stay healthy last year, so Toninato was the 4th line Center, with Nash, Brooks, Svech, and Harkins. Brooks and Nash are in the AHL, Svech is a 4th liner in SJ.
They have been replaced with a healthy Gustafson, Gagner (over 30 pts last year, and already has more points than Ves, Nash, Brooks, and Reichel combined last year), Maenalanen (almost a point per game in Liiga last year) who is getting a second chance in the NHL, Eyssimont a promising rookie. AJF is the only scrap heap treasure, and his 4 points in 24 games was a big improvement over the nothing we got from the bulk of our 4th last year.
If you don’t see a massive improvement in the bottom six this year, I don’t know what else to say.
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