You must be new to HF. Western Canadian fans actively seek out polls that mention Leaf players and vote against them no matter how blatantly stupid it is. You could put up a Bennet vs Matthews poll and it would be close.How on earth is this slanted in Laine's favor ? Bäckström and Bergeron are only centers in those teams, who are equal to Matthews.
It worked very well for Oshie and Brouwer, Laine or Ovechkin in that spot would get 15 power play goals a year easily.
And if PP is your concern than Matthews is not your guy, he's not nearly as good as Laine on the PP, he has 2 PPGs this year. He'd be on the 2nd unit behind Backstrom and Kuznetsov.
PP is not my concern, that's why I want Matthews over Laine. Give me Matthews for all the things he brings at ES.
Fair enough, for the Caps i think it should be best player available, and that's basically a coin flip.
At this point it's Matthews replacing Eller at 3C or Laine replacing Vrana/Burakovsky at 2LW/2RW. Our Centre Depth is clearly stronger than our winger depth and moving Kuznetsov to wing with Matthews is not a sure thing, but giving Kuznetsov Laine to play with is a lot more safe.
My strategy would be to have the strongest center depth. Backstrom/Matthews/Kuznetsov/Eller would be unmatched, by far the best center depth in the league. There is no harm in having an elite player on the 3rd line.
I guess we just have different philosophies.
PP is not my concern, that's why I want Matthews over Laine. Give me Matthews for all the things he brings at ES.
You can't have both of them play at the top of the left circle on the PP. Laine leads the league in PP goals and he makes his living in the Ovi spot. Matthews is a left handed sniper, something we don't have at all on the Caps.
Ovy& Laine on the same pp, how the hell do you shut that down? (not you, a team).
Anyways the lineup would be a nightmare to match up with Backstrom+ Laine on 1 line, Kuz+ Ovy on another.