Rich Nixon
No Prior Knowledge of "Flyers"
He's currently our best defensemen and until that changes he's definitely more important than the rest. If you want to say that one day someone like Sanheim or Myers will be better, than you're being EXTREMELY optimistic and at the very least I'd say we need to wait until that actually happens before deciding he's expendable or "least necessary". Same reason we can't trade Couturier just because we have Patrick and Frost.
Also, by "irreplaceable" I didn't simply mean rarest or most unique. I meant we don't have anyone who is good enough to fill his shoes (quality-wise). We can't replace the value he brings to this team, hence "irreplaceable".
And I say that as someone who loves our other defensemen, as proven by how often I say we don't need to add a top 4 guy. We have the pieces to be a great team, they're already pretty damn good and guys like Sanheim and Myers are far from their peak. But none of them are on Ghosts level right now so it blows my mind when I see people saying they make him expendable or that they can replace him already. The chances that any of them ever have a year as good as what he's already accomplished is very small, so it's ridiculously premature for some to think he's already someone we can afford to trade. On top of that, he's being consistently ****ed around by coaches and so often paired with downright trash players. He's playing in situations that absolutely limit a players ability, so what he's already done isn't even the best I can imagine him doing.
Well this is interesting...I obviously am of the opinion the team does need another top 4 guy, short-term, because none of the youngsters are yet as good as Gostisbehere, and I'd prefer to be running only one of Sanheim/Myers in the top 4 for at least next season...and then being able to tailor minutes to everyone's best usage (as in, Ghost gets to eat a lot of power play time, Provorov doesn't have to get ground into dust, etc.)
And yes, I agree that Ghost is hard to replace today, because he's one of the best on the defense right now. This current defense isn't very good, but that's not the point. It's that going forward, there isn't much that's going to change about his game, he'll always be this cool unique weapon with good hands and passing all over the ice, he's 26. So today, sure, he's an important player by mere default of being in the league for more than 60 games. But he'll still be Ghost while Sanheim and Myers grow into extremely valuable defenders, and the defense will advance more from them reaching some semblance of their potential than anything else. Does that make sense?