I don't like the idea of it but I think this is how our bottom-4 defense is going to look this year when healthy.
Hamhuis - Sbisa
Bartowski - Weber
Corrado
I just don't see Corrado getting playing time over Bartowski due to him being a new Benning acquisition who is also pretty pricey. I think his only chance to break into the lineup is by injury or beating out Weber. Even though Weber played decent with Hamhuis last year I see them getting Sbisa into the top-4 on a permanent basis. When Benning said he thought Sbisa was going to be a top-4 dman he wasn't kidding. One way or another, Sbisa is going to be playing in the top-4, regardless of if he actually deserves to or not.
That does seem the most likely outcome. As a starting point at least.
Though i think it's important to take a less "lineup card-y" sort of perspective on "top-4D". The way this staff likes to roll lines (and d-pairs)...i think it's really "top pair" which is Edler-Tanev...and after that it's just paper numbers vs minutes numbers.
You can write it out like:
Edler-Tanev
Hamhuis-Sbisa
Bartkowski-Weber
or whatever...but that doesn't exactly mean the minutes are going to be distributed 1-2-3-4-5-6 along that order.
Special teams usage and those "extra shifts" mean a lot overall. Just as we had a Bieksa last year playing effectively the same number of minutes in games as Tanev...despite one being on the "1st pairing" and one being on the "3rd pairing" by the lineup card. And you'd have a Bieksa playing more minutes most every night vs Weber who was apparently playing in the "top-4" and even raking in top-PP minutes. (with the exception of nights where we were on the PP all day).
People seem to get very literal about the cut-off between "top-4" and "not top-4" based on the way it gets written down on a "projected lineup card". I think you've gotta be far more flexible in thinking about how the minutes will ultimately break down.
The "hardest minutes" are what really matter. That's EV+PK minutes. In the event of which ATOI/60 for our defencemen last year breaks down something like:
Edler-20.35.
Tanev-19.92.
Hamhuis-19.08.
Bieksa-18.8.
Sbisa-18.07.
So Sbisa lands...~0.73 ATOI/60 minutes behind Bieksa. Not "top-4" minutes per se, but awfully close. To bump that up even just a minute more to surpass Bieksa...maybe that's something, and at that point i'd call Sbisa a fairly indisputable "top-4D". But that's just me...i find PP minutes and which partner a defenceman is paired with tend to really obscure and distract from who the "top-4D" on a team really are in a lot of situations.
However it shakes out...i do think they're counting on Bartkowski to be a regular fixture. And i do think Sbisa is going to be asked to absorb that fractional piece of a minute that Bieksa played more than him. I'm expecting roughly...Sbisa takes Bieksa's minutes, Bartkowski takes last year's Sbisa minutes. And if Bartkowski is actually decent...he should be able to play Sbisa type minutes well enough.
My biggest hope is that Corrado gets a fair shake. His development has kind of flatlined and that sucks...but a young player like that getting his groove back like he had early in his NHL experience, would be absolutely huge for this team. And he's got the shooting ability to make Weber a pressbox denizen once again. Possibly.
A lot of ways it could shake out though, and the "pairings on paper" don't necessarily mean everything.
Still think we're one solid veteran defenceman away from a very deep blueline. And that veteran defenceman is Ehrhoff and he's still out there...but i digress...tirade for another thread.