Small sample size, bro.
Iginla lead the team in goals in the playoffs and regular season, and while you want to discount his goals in the playoffs, they were as many as Marchand, Bergeron, Krejci and Eriksson COMBINED.
Iginla had 5 goals and Lucic had 4. Yet Krejci had only 4 points playing between them! I don't see you pushing to deal Krejci.
If you think the Bruins window is now (and I know you do) how is letting Iginla go without a replacement any less ridiculous than dealing Boychuk for futures without a replacement?
If Iginla is willing to play at a discount, you have to keep him. If we can't afford Iginla without making moves, how do we bring in a soft guy, that flies the zone early, and that scores at the same rate for $6 million a year in Eberle?
You just ignored completely my breakdown of his goals. I know his goal total looks fine, that's not what I'm talking about. My whole point is that his 5 goal total is deceiving. Marchand, Bergeron, Krejci, and Eriksson all deserve criticism, and have gotten it.
This is the only year that Krejci has had a bad playoffs. There was 2012, but he was playing concussed after that pane of glass fell on his head after Game 1. Krejci is in his prime, Iginla is 37 and will be another year older and slower. We're all talking about how out of character Krejci and Lucic looked in the playoffs, could it be that Iginla just isn't a good fit there? Because that's the one variable from that line that is different from the past. Iginla scored 30 goals, you can get away with having a line that doesn't work when you're playing crappy teams and teams who aren't even trying in the regular season. But the true measuring stick is the playoffs, and Iginla just wasn't close to himself when the postseason started.
Marchand has been terrible in the playoffs since 2011. He had a good 4 games vs the Penguins in the ECF, other than that he's been terrible in the playoffs. He should be dealt with prospects to get a legitimate winger to upgrade Iginla's spot. Smith-Bergeron-Eriksson can be the 2nd line, and we can find serviceable 3rd liners. Paille definitely has the skills to be that 3rd line LW, he has shown a ton over these past couple of years and scored a lot of clutch goals for us.
Assuming Kelly gets moved because of the obvious cap issue, your bottom 6 would look as follows:
Paille-Soderberg-? (Fraser?)
X-Campbell-X
There are plenty of free agents who could be signed for very cheap deals to play on that 4th line, and we also have a plethora of prospects, outside of whoever we packaged with Marchand, to also compete for spots.
As far as the Eberle vs Iginla thing, I honestly believe that Eberle is the best kind of player to put on that line with Lucic and Krejci. That line was always absolutely dynamite when Seguin was put in that spot. I think for chemistry purposes, that line would be most effective with a legitimate goal scorer who can skate on that RW.
I wish there was a way we could've kept Horton. I said it when he walked and we signed Iginla, we lost something there that Iginla was not able to replicate. I thought that maybe for a year, it would be good, with Iginla being so desperate to win a Cup, but he just doesn't have it anymore.
Wrong. Krejci finished the playoffs with the worst Relative Corsi out of any Bruins in the top 9.
Even worse, his Relative Goals For was at -49%!!! That's so insanely bad I thought it was a typo.
This isn't baseball. I don't care what the stats say. Krejci looked a lot more like Krejci in the playoffs, minus the goals, than Iginla looked like Iginla. I'm not talking about goals, I already broke down why Iginla's goals in the playoffs are deceiving. I was honestly shocked at how terrible and sluggish Iginla looked, being that he was on one of his final quests to win a Stanley Cup.
