Same old whining this morning, about a forward who hasn't even been signed and the #8 defenseman.
Go back to the 2009-10 and 2010-11 Flyers, bottom six forwards and third pair defensemen don't seem to have much impact on success, because those teams had their share of players (Shelley, Carcillo, a string of marginal defensemen) who were at the Stewart/Hagg level of play.
Third pair defensemen and bottom six forwards are pretty fungible for the post part, we're talking forwards who generally score 15-25 points on the 3rd line and 10-20 on the 4th line, so their defense (or lack of such) is more important for the 8-12 ES minutes they get per game. And most 3rd pair defensemen get 13-15 minutes a night at ES.
Or we can look at top teams:
TB: Girardi 15:30 at ES,
3rd liners, Miller (12:03, 27), Cirelli (11:56, 32), Killorn (11:33, 33)
4th liners, Joseph (10:27, 24), Callahan (10:00, 15), Paquette (9:56, 15), Erne (9:46, 18)
Tampa was exceptionally deep.
Boston: Grzelcyk 16:30, Moore 16:12, Miller 15:54,
3rd liners, Kuraly (12:24, 21), Wagner (11:57, 19), Nordstrom (11:43, 12)
4th liners, Acciari (11:22, 14), Backes (11:12, 13), Karlson/Bjork/Donato, 17 ES points in 82 games [or why they traded for Coyle and Johansson at the TDL]