- Jan 23, 2010
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agreed.
but none of the replacement guys have shown me they are nhl players. in fairness to them, they are role players with no defined role on this team fitting their talents to play from which they could build. we have no grinding for them to do. a guy like graovac could be a useful player if he played a disciplined defensive role and picked his spots to be creative a few times a game. instead he's out there trying to be denis savard, when he is, at best, sean matthias.
it is sort of like what happened with megna and chaput. they were great roleplayers put into roles way over their heads, and so they became irritating reminders we lacked talent. in this case, the bottom six is just not being played as a bottom six. they are all out there trying to score every shift and they look awful not doing that.
I think guys like Graovac, Highmore, MacEwen, and Hawryluk have at least flashed at times enough so that if they were battling at camp for the 12th/13th/14th forward spots that would be okay.
I don't think Vesey, Boyd, and Michaelis have shown anything to suggest they should be offered new contracts. Lind has shown nothing as well and is likely destined for the AHL.
I didn't mind Chaput that much, at least as a 4th line guy. Megna was not an NHL player.