Spooner & Pasta may have carried this team late last year but it was a very small sample and there's a world of difference between regular season & playoffs. Spooner & Pasta's game IMHO will not nearly be as effective in the post-season as teams will negate their speed by just playing physical against these 2 diminutive forwards. In Pasta's first game vs LA he was targeted from the start and you could see that while he was game he wasn't nearly as effective as he had been in other games. And Spooner doesn't seem the type to get his nose dirty and seems more of a perimeter player but I feel that's his game, curl up upon entry, hit the late man. I haven't seen Ryan really use his speed and drive around defenders as much as he could / should. I would also love Ryan to show a little bit more grit in his game and drive to the net, just not so sure he would be very effective doing so.
If you trade DK, that leaves the lion's share of offense the Bergie's line if Spoons & Pasta draw the other team's top defenders. Speed is a great asset but only when used properly and I question Ryan's usage of it. From what I've seen, he is not the most creative player with the puck at least not in the same league as DK. I think you need both types of players (DK to slow the game down, RS to attack w/ pace) and having lines centered by DK, PB and RS gives us a lot of options. That said, the big question in my mind is can we expect the same level of effort & results from Spooner & Pasta (w/ Lucic) next year or was last year an aberration? Only time will tell but I don't believe trading DK addresses our offensive woes which many feel was a key reason that we were on the outside looking in.
P.S: Just for the record, I really like RS, perhaps he just needs another year or 2 of seasoning at the NHL level to truly gauge what he can do and what he can become. One thing though, I wish he'd do away with his "10 & 2" skating style, there's a time & a place for it, not "every" time you enter the O-zone!
