At a certain point, it's managements job to also improve the AHL squad.
Rychel seems lightyears better than Shinkaruk.
Stuff like this on an already weak team hurts.
Didn't know Olofsson was out for the season, that blows.
I agree on the trade and for your last comment which is my point. I'm hoping for us to sneak into a playoff spot but it seems like I may be dreaming.
I just had someone giving me crap for calling the Shinkaruk-Rychel trade terrible the other day. Now we don't know if MB was doing more of a favor for Rychel, but then he trades the AHL defensmen of the year in Taormina along with Valiev, now Kulak is ok but giving up 2 vet blueliners and one of your top scorers in Taormina stings badly.
This team would look much better if Rychel and Taormina were still here. I can see why they took a flyer on Olofsson, hoping that all those shoulder injuries wouldn't impact him but they gambled and lost on that one which then hurts Laval since he traded away 2 of our top blueliners for Kulak who was a very good D for us don't get me wrong. I was really starting to like the Kulak Fleury pairing.
We'll see if they can make the playoffs or not, I think they can but this game was a backbreaker as they played really well against LV last night and up until under a minute left in the game they really did a great job shutting down the top scoring team in the league. And most nights they just look the part, they out shoot, out chance but their terrible PP and lack of scoring just continue to bite them in the ass.
The play by play for LV said last night that Laval is the best team in the league for shots against and that he had heard how well they play defensively but just can't score and he talked about how he can see how that's true since that's what they were doing last night, throwing everything at the LV goalie and in the 3rd at one point LV had something like 2 shots late in the period. They had 7 PPs and couldn't get it done and that cost them the game.