Player Discussion Artturi Lehkonen

[MasterD]

Agreed but he is also part of our flawed forward group where our top players are small or soft and we surround them with other smurfs. Lehkonen is one of the hardest working and he does have his scoring chances but can't finish.

Lehkonen would fit well on a team where their top players are big and physical. Not so sure he is part of our long term plans to be honest. I do think he has solid game and probably has a good prime from 25-30 but with the Habs? We will see.

He might get drafted by Seattle. Lots can change but it might be one of Mete or Lehkonen

Yep. Love the player, he does everything a smaller 3rd line winger needs to do, but this team needs big strong wingers in the bottom 6. He's just not a great fit.

 

[Sorinth]

Yep. Love the player, he does everything a smaller 3rd line winger needs to do, but this team needs big strong wingers in the bottom 6. He's just not a great fit.

Having big players in the bottom six doesn't fix a top-6 that is lacking in size.

 

[MasterD]

Having big players in the bottom six doesn't fix a top-6 that is lacking in size.

No. But having a bigger bottom 6 and a smaller top 6 is better than having a small too 12.

Lehkonen is a bottom 6 player, so I'm talking about who should play there instead.

 

[Scriptor]

Lehkonen is fine on a line because he plays in your face hockey and is hard to play against. It's having a Lehkonen-sized player at LW, C and RW on the same line that's a problem.

Lehkonen - Poehling - Armia would be fine as a 3rd line, for example, as would Lehkonen - Danault - Armia, provided the top-2 lines are stronger lines.

Suzuki in Danault's spot between Tatar and Gallagher would improve that line, overall, IMO, even if it doesn't improve the overall size of the line. A little less shutdown ability, at least initially but, more offensive potential to offset that.

Drouin/Domi - Kotkanimei - Caufield brings skill on the wings and an increasing size/skill combo at C but, lacks size on both wings.

At some point, our size or relative frailty (Drouin) on LW will be a problem as it doesn't offset the lack of size on RW properly. At, least, the C-line isn't as small as it used to be with Desharnais and Plekanec.

I'd still flip Domi (maybe Danault) for some help on D and, ideally, would replace Drouin with more of a power forward top-6 LW. Maybe that becomes Lafrenière or whomever we end up picking at #9 (Holtz, who plays both wings?) if we lose to Pittsburgh.

Tatar - Suzuki - Gallagher
Lafrenière/Holtz - Kotkaniemi - Caufield
Lehkonen - Poehling/Danault - Armia
Teasedale - Evans/Poehling - Ylonen

Domi, Drouin and Danault all become valuable assets to turn into upgrades on D. They also save enough cap room for this and addressing other Cap space needs on the roster. There's potentially somewhere around 17M tied up there in future contracts and slightly over 11.5M immediately off the books with those players gone, enough to add a top-flight D or two. The current Cap room will take care of the raises doled out to UFAs and RFAs that are retained.

Add to that the 5.5M I would free up by trading Petry for futures and we'd be swimming in Cap flexibility. It might even help us ice a different team up front by not trading one of Domi or Drouin until Holtz has gained some experience, if it's him and not Lafrenière we had picked.

Tatar - Suzuki - Gallagher
Drouin/Domi - Kotkaniemi - Caufield
Holtz - Poehling - Armia
Lehkonen - Evans - Ylonen
Teasedale

XXX - Weber
Romanov - XXX
XXX (Norlinder/Harris?) - Juulsen
Brook/Fleury/Harris/Norlinder