cgf
FireBednarsSuccessor
And lets say you move Parenteau for a defender...then you're left with a top nine that is not ideally suited to run three scoring lines.
O'Reilly-Duchene-McGinn
Landeskog-Stastny-Tanguay
XXX-MacKinnon-XXX
And suddenly MacKinnon is playing with Talbot/Mitchell/McLeod. This team absolutely needs one good top four defender, ideally two. If the Avs want to run three scoring lines then we cannot afford to move any of our top forwards for a defensman, which means the only way we'll improve our defense is by drastically overpaying a guy like MacDonald in free agency or hoping to find a team willing to move a defender for futures. I don't like either of those options. I'd love to keep Stastny and keep running three scoring lines, but to do that we need to keep all of our other forwards as well and potentially add another one to play alongside MacKinnon if you don't want Mitchell/Talbot in our top 9 nine long term. I just don't feel that's an overly realistic option if we want to improve our defense and give both Stastny and MacKinnon good linemates.
I'd play MacK with McGinn and Talbot as was the plan, McGinnon had good chemistry together and just needed a veteran defensive presence to keep them from getting hemmed into their own zone. We'd have to make another smaller move to find ROR-Duchene a new partner, but that's not hard, hell Malone could even fill the role while we look for a trade.
But I'm all about building lines around duos, adding a third complimentary piece that fits. For us those duos should be ROR-Duchene, Landeskog-Stastny, and McGinn-MacKinnon. Tanguay is the perfect third piece for Landy-Staz, and Talbot is great next to McGinnon. So we could still keep the three lines rolling.