We haven't seen it, so how could we know?
Goligoski - Klingberg has been fine.
It seems like some of us want a perfect team - that's simply not going to happen. We currently have the #1 offense in the league, and its definitely a top 3 offense on paper as well. Its how we're built, what we got lucky with and were given to work with.
We can't have an elite defense too. Right now, its average to slightly above-average. Klingberg is an average #1 at the point, Goligoski an average #2, Demers an average #3, and so on. Russell is the first player who really stands out amongst his peers as a #5 defender, and I think that's then entire reason he was acquired - to boost us from average to above-average, and to fill in for injuries (which obviously has been huge as of late). Defensemen are also the most valuable players in the league, and good ones are few and far between - there's a reason so few get traded, and why even borderline #3/#4 defenders get such massive returns. Look at Coburn, Daley, Jones, Hamilton, etc. and see what kind of value they got. And none of these are bonafide top-pairing defenders, either. Close or potentially could be, sure, but they aren't right now. Yandle was probably the last to be traded and his price was pretty ridiculous for 1.25 years worth of him. Knowing Nill, he's not going to give up the assets needed to overpay for a current fix on defense, and the cap is going to prevent us from going all in on a guy like Yandle, who is the best FA defender available. There really aren't many, if any options outside of what we've already got.
The goaltending has been pretty terrible overall for the last two seasons, and for as many goaltenders as we've gone through and as much as we're paying the current duo, we definitely can and should expect a better performance from them, and for there to already be a solution. I still think this is the most likely place we'll see a big move (again, unfortunately) and the place where we can improve the most as well.