If we’re going to trade our best players season after season it’d be nice to actually trade for a really good player instead of a bunch of lottery tickets. Assuming EDM picks it up next year which I assume they do, it’ll be a late first and the chances that player becomes as good as Barrie aren’t high, same with the 2nd. And Jones is a decent prospect but don’t want him for Barrie.
And no Girard hasn’t replaced Barrie already. Girard is nowhere near good as Barrie right now, except at QB’ing a PP. He doesn’t generate offense at ES anywhere near as good as Barrie and defensively they’re a wash rn. Girard may replace Barrie at some point, but that point definitely isn’t now.
Yeah. I was one of Girard's first champions on our board when most on our board where saying that Samwise was too small to be the bluechip D in a Duchene trade and so wanted Fabbro instead. And wanted him on the first unit PP over Barrie from the get go; but he's not ready to replace Barrie anywhere but on the PP yet. He's smarter defensively, but also weaker and still makes rookie mistakes that Tyson doesn't when he's moving his feet. And when it comes to creating offense 5on5, Girard is absolutely blown out of the water by Barrie. We need to let Barrie be Barrie; while Samwise grows on the third pairing where his minutes can be managed when he has those rough games, and gives our 1st unit PP a boost until MacK is back. In the summer or next season things could change...especially if Bae keeps improving next to EJ and we start seeing Zads and EJ driving offense at 5 on 5 while Girard becomes a more consistent contributer, then Barrie may start to become expendable.
I mean shit, it's not like we have some powerhouse D even with both smurfs and that beastly Zadorov-Johnson pairing. We're anxiously awaiting the return of Mark f***in Barberio for christ sake. That is not the sign of a blue line that can give away any of its good blueliners. We might get there in a few years with those three sexy RHD prospect if they develop quickly, and there could be Barrie trades that are worth messing with out blueline; but pretending like losing our 2nd or 3rd best dman...who's an elite ES creator...wouldn't be a big deal is asinine. As Kento said somewhere on our board, Barrie
IS our secondary scoring right now.