They brought them in to be a replacement for the 4th line center position. Whether that's all of this season or just until Getz and Kes get back, we won't know until they get back. However, my point is that many here said that simply having Rasmussen on our 4th line over Thompson was an instant upgrade. I disagreed then, but I thought Rasmussen would be much better than what he's been so far. I think it's pretty dang telling that Grant, who should be in the AHL, is ahead of him on the depth chart.
I'd rather just put Boll in the minors to get that 1 million in cap space and play Vermette on 4th line. Vermette isn't very good, but he's a much better player than those two AHLers. Assuming burying Boll is not an option, I guess it'd depend on what center we could get.
Honestly, I think they were brought in to be the 12th/13th/14th forward for a cheap buck. I think the plan was always to experiment with Rakell (based on comments made in the past), with Vermette centering the 4th line thus making him Thompson's "replacement".
There are exceptions such as Daniel Winnik, but typically a legit 4th line player on a cup contender is going to cost you a minimum of $1 mil on todays market. With the salary cap, you're only gonna have good depth if you have young players on ELC's stepping up, or if you lack top end talent.
Look at Chicago and see how much money the spend on a few players. The Ducks are structured the same. We sacrificed depth when we got rid for Bonino and Perreault and brought in Kesler. Of course, paying Bieksa $4 mil doesn't exactly help either ... The lack of depth isn't new, we're just feeling it more than ever because of a ridicoulus injury situation. Had this happened last season Sam Carrick, Corey Tropp and Emerson Etem would have been up here.
For the salary guys like Shaw, Rasmussen and Grant are making, you're either getting a offensive player who struggle to produce in the NHL and are lacking defensively (Seth Griffith, Tomas Jurco, Brandon Pirri etc) or you're getting an offensive black hole who isn't a defensive liability in a limited role (Grant/Rasmussen/Shaw).
Frankly I can't think of a single turnover from Grant. Turns out he's the only one with 0 giveaways, except for Eaves (who played two games) and Boll (who's touched the puck about five times this season). He's also 54% on faceoffs and has 9 blocked shots. That's the 5th most on Ducks. All 4 ahead of him are defensemen, and the next three trailing him are also defensemen. He's also just inches from having two goals. All in all, I'd say he's done ok for his paycheck.
The problem imo is not having these players. It's being forced to play too many of them all at once. It wouldn't surprise me if Kossila or Roy is called up before our next game, but I wouldn't bank on them improving our team. Just like Kerdiles and Fiore has done nothing in the little they have played. It's one thing to be skilled, it's another thing to be able to play a skill game at the NHL level.
He's a poor man's Lovejoy. Say what you want about Lovejoy but the guy is closing in on 10 years in the league. He must be doing something right to keep getting a job for that long in a league that is shifting more and more to young players
Yeah, as much critcism Lovejoy was getting on our board, he was much better than anyone we have can put on our 3rd pairing now. He'd ice the puck more than anyone, but he wasn't someone who would constantly do costly mistakes, and his game without the puck was underrated.