This......
Yandle is a high-risk, high-reward player. Thus he needs a bonafide shutdown partner, and some forwards who can cover his back when he pinches in or goes on the rush.
But DMO has been somewhat of a whipping boy in the past as well. So I don't see how the theory holds that this year exposed Yandle b/c of DMO, but other years haven't. Plus, I think Connor Murphy, in his limited time, was actually a + player for us. IIRC, there were several post-game pressers where Murphy mentioned playing alongside Yandle.
Looking at Murphy's game lines, he had 15 games where he played over 18 minutes on ice per game. I would assume that these were the games that he would have been paired with Yandle predominantly, or an injury to another player forced him into far more time, which likely would have moved him alongside Yandle more. Most other games, he had between 8 and 15 minutes of ice time. In the 15 games where Murphy saw 18+ minutes: 1G, 7A, +2 for Murphy's stat lines. I get that Murphy was experiencing his first NHL action, but that seems counter-intuitive that we would need to get a true shut-down partner when Murphy, technically, out-played DMO and Murphy's trajectory is only going to go up from this point if he is to be that shut-down role player.
Stone was also paired with Yandle for a time, which could have been the issue. I view Stone as having the size of a SAH D, but he is more PMD than people realize, with a heavy shot. 2 players with questionable D on the same line affects the +/-. So the question begs to be asked whether or not the line-up shuffles really hurt Yandle that much? We obviously had a motley crew of players that saw ice time with Yandle, including DMO, Stone, Murphy, Summers, and Klesla, but I'd argue that the grouping of those 5 collectively this year was not that much worse than whom we have seen with Yandle in the past, as DMO has missed games and had his share of inconsistencies as well.
If we want to go the route that is bolded, then we have basically turned into the 2009-10 or 2011-12 version of the 'Yotes, where we spend money on a SAH D and maybe add another 1 or 2 defense-first players to our forward group. Much higher success rate in the W/L column, but each of those seasons saw 41 and 43 points from Yandle, respectively, not the projected 60 point seasons that people assume. I'd wager that for all of Yandle's talent, removing some risk and reward from the defense and supplementing that with reward at a forward position would help the team considerably, without that much of a drop-off on puck movement from the blue line. Plus, the money that would be required for the bonafide shutdown D-man and 1-2 forwards (maybe $2.0-4.0 million per year total for those additional players) would be better used to also gain a top 6/9 forward, assuming a trade of Yandle would basically be even salary for salary.
