You keep going on and on about Filppula while ignoring that he played on a significantly better ES team for most of the year. He finished out in Philly with a 21% shooting perecentage which likely wasn't going to continue at all. I'd largely expect Fippula will cool off too given his 31% shooting percentage to start the year. If you're asking questions about Schenn the same could be said for Simmonds who can only play RW. Schenn's a guy who has shown he is at least flexible in the lineup LW, C, RW while Simmonds has shown he's only useful at RW during ES play.
My point is Filppula isn't much of a downgrade from Schenn at center at ES for one year.
ES and PP should be considered separately, look at Marchand, he finally gets to play PP and adds 20 points to his scoring total, but was the same player at ES that he was the previously five seasons. So to me, Schenn is a 30-35 ES center here, and replaceable on the PP.
Lehtera was a salary dump, one reason Hextall will probably never sign a top FA, he likes the flexibility that extra cap room provides. He helped us get two #1 picks for a 3rd line center (whatever he does in St Louis, he was either going to be a 3rd line RW or C here, behind G, Couts and/or Patrick and behind Voracek and Simmonds/Konency).
There's no point getting excited over Lehtera, or MacDonald or Weise. They're going to be phased out by next year, most likely by spring this year. You still upset by Vinnie?
