Voted ESW because of upside. Can't say they were better so far (because they haven't been around long enough to prove they can produce consistently), but the potential to be a dominant line that other teams have to plan for is there and is something LLW never had. Ehlers has a long way to go to match Ladd at his peak, who was a top-10 LW in the league, and Scheifele has only recently possibly surpassed Little. Oddly enough, for the purpose of comparison, Wheeler is a better player now than he was for the majority of the time he was on the LLW line.
Not odd. Ehlers & Scheif compliment him better than Ladd & Little.
Voted Schwheehlers because of the way they were able to dominate top lines on good teams late in the season. It may have been 'garbage time' but those teams still had something to play for. I don't expect them to be that successful all the time but they showed something special. Call it upside if you want but that implies 'hoped for future' and we have already seen it.
Well, that "shiny new toy" had a combined 49 points in 13 games together after the Ladd trade, so I think people are right to be impressed. Scheifele had 21 points (1.62 p/g), Wheeler had 17 points (1.31 p/g) and Ehlers had 11 points (0.85 p/g).
When Ehlers was out for 10 games with the eye injury, Scheifele had 10 points and Wheeler had 6. Stafford, who was moved up in Ehlers' absence, put up 4 points on that line.
There is your explanation. Had it been Perreault moved in instead we might not have seen a drop off in production. Unfortunately he wasn't available. Never mind any other doubts about Stafford. He has been poor every time he played the left side.
I know Perreault is popular, but I could easily see trading him next year or not re-signing him as a UFA. He'll be 29 and is quite injury prone...not the kind of player one can count on for the rigors of a (hopefully) 100 game season.
There are some hard decisions coming, of the kind only deep teams have to make
Why I want to keep Perreault:
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I think people tend to think of Perreault in the O zone setting up linemates. They tend to not notice his good 2 way play.
I want Perreault for the next several years helping to stabilize our inexperienced young players. He plays hard all the time, rarely if ever takes a game off and is responsible in all 3 zones. Outstanding example. Not to mention his excellent production. His ability to play both wing and centre provides great depth and flexibility. Might just be the best bang for the buck in the whole league and still will be good value after we give him a nice raise. He is the waterbug version of Michael Frolik with better offensive skills.