Mentioning the draft pick was probably a mistake, my point is there is a glaring flaw to forward core made up of Nico, Hughes, Bratt, Gusev and Dadonov. I don’t know how anyone can watch these playoff and think a forward core composed entirely of shifty mites (yes, Nico has to be >>175 lb at this point but he’s not Dubois) is a great idea.
I like Dadonov and if we’re signing him or Hoffman I’ll probably take Dadonov but we added two soft offense first forwards in Goose and Hughes last year. Dadonov isn’t as soft (that’s not saying much) but having no size and little physical game in our top six is a still a bad thing. It’s fun to be speedy and skilled but always being the hittee rather than hitter wears you down, you can’t create space or crash the net and we are going to be completely physically dominated quite a bit. We all tsk tsked at the Leafs and that is a less physical top six. I get that these are the players we have to work with and there aren’t easy answers in the UFA market (or elsewhere) but we are hopefully leaving “the everyone sucks just get someone good who scores” phase soon and can start to think in terms of team construction.
I personally don’t have specific player wish list other than PLEASE GOD AT LEAST ONE NEW PLAYER TO PLAY LD WHOSE NOT TERRIBAD and good veteran goalie. Evolving Hockey’s estimated contract for Dadonov is actually bigger than Hoffman’s, they have 6y/7m for Dadonov and 5y/6.6m for Hoffman. Maybe they aren’t getting that in the current financial environment but I also think the chance of Devils signing either of these guys is slim. They’re older than Palms and Goose and comparatively unknown quantities. We need a top 4 defenseman and a goalie more than we need another top 6 forward so I don’t see the team’s biggest UFA signing going in that direction. It depends on how the free agent market is, maybe if they sign shorter deals but the market may end up being more normal than people predict.
