I like Mayfield (when he's not making egregious errors), but he's best as a bottom pairing d-man. Most likely with this pretty bad UFA market someone is giving him 4M+ a year. Lou should not touch that - Even if he moves Bailey.
I wouldn't put it past Lou to dock him on a deal for 3.3 MM per - but over something like 6 years.
Something like the Cizikas contract.
And even if he can move Bailey that would give the Isles about 10M in cap space - To....
-Resign Engvall
-Resign Parise
-Resign Wahlstrom
-Replace Mayfield
-Find a backup goalie
-Add another NHL/vet D-man so we don't have to see 1-2 AHLers in over their head next season.
That's a lot of stuff on the to-do list.
Too much. And just to keep that status quo.
One of the biggest losses of last season was not being able to figure out what we really have in Wahlstrom. Would have been highly beneficial to know what he is. 7 goals in what, 35 games, was not exactly the expected rate of production we had all surely hoped to see out of him. He was off to a career high in points, but not a career high for PPG pace.
And he was in his 3rd season of NHL action.
Dunno if the team will go outside of the organization for more depth Dmen. Bolduc is in the pecking order. Hutton was re-signed to 3(!) years last summer. Aho and Cholowski will be on the tail end of 2-year contracts. Salo is still there. They added the two NCAA guys last spring. Krygier is on an AHL contract, but if he's good, then that can be upgraded. Sevigny is still in the picture on the farm.
So, for the Isles, it's either Mayfield or a comprable being (re-)signed.
And while we do hope that Engvall and Parise stick around, Fasching was re-upped and Holmstrom could be understood as in line for more responsibility. I mean, we've gotta hope that he's ready for a bigger piece of the responsibility pie.
I'd add that in Durandeau and MacLean, it feels like we've got internal answers for the 4th line. Heck, even Koivula has another year on his contract.
...And this would just be to keep things roughly the same. Not sure where any substantial improvement would come from.
I think as long as Lou is the GM here, the belief will be that the men in the locker room have it in them to take the necessary steps towards improvement.
And the fanbase will have to hope he's right, season for season.