Bouchard is useless because of Grabner, IMO. We only have room for one of those players on our roster and Grabner is just better. They are both small, perimeter players who are bad on the boards. Grabner is a better stick checker, better on the forecheck, and better defensively. And then obviously the speed.
We also have too many marginal top 6 guys anyway. Bailey (considering recent play), Grabner, Bouchard, Nelson (as of right now), etc. There's not enough spots in our top 6 for all these players along with JT, Vanek, Okposo, and Nielsen. Whoever gets slotted down has to play with Regin, which will completely kill said players offense.
That's why the Bouchard pick up was awful. Without playing alongside offensive players, he will be more useless than he already looks. I'd rather trade him for defensive depth since he's superfluous. An injury to players in our top 6 even without Bouchard allows you to put Grabner into the top 6 or bring up Strome or Lee. If there's an injury to our bottom 6 (which is the next scariest thing to our injured defense), that would prompt me to slot a defensive aware veteran down and slot Strome in the top 6.
I think these are the moves that need to be made with an anemic defense. This teams needs to learn from its mistakes of plugging in a rookie offensive player into a role that is extremely difficult to score. Basically, Nino's first 15-20 games vs. Nelson's first 15-20 games and the differing situations they played in.
Something like this would be fun:
Vanek-JT-Bailey
Strome-Nielsen-Okposo
Grabner-Nelson-McDonald
Martin-Cizikas-Clutter
I think that this can be one of our most balanced lineups. There is defense, scoring (except 4th), and physicality in the corners on every line. I think Strome would benefit GREATLY from playing with Nielsen. With a real coach, you could swap Bailey and Strome based on situation as it reunites that familiar second line and creates a purely offensive first line -- maybe if we are down a goal.