- Aug 13, 2007
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This should sum up what Poile didn't address in the offseason. While we all worried about Josi filling Suter's skates, he should've concerned himself who was going to replace Josi on the second pairing. Josi and Weber look good together. The other two pairings worry me greatly.
I'd almost venture putting Ellis with Weber and putting Josi back with Klein. Problem is who's our third pairing. We need a PMD to pair with Klein to make that second pairing effective.
On to Minny and kicking Suter's arse.
I've been clamoring for a while now that we need a 2nd pairing puck moving d-man. Glad there's others who feel the same.
We could throw a hail mary and stick Blum with Klein. At this point though, I want to keep Weber and Josi together. They may as well get comfortable playing together since I see them as our future 1st pairing for a while. I don't think Weber and Ellis would complement each other very well.
Agreed. Klein and Hannan is not going to work for the same reason Klein and Hamhuis or Klein and Bouillon didn't work: neither player can move the puck out of the back. Klein is great at carrying the puck and stick-handling, but when you force him to pass, his game goes to pieces and puts more pressure on everybody.
I'd give Blum a shot at that position alongside Klein for a couple of games, and if that doesn't fix the issue, start putting out feelers for a defenseman and see if there aren't any Grebeshkov-type adds available. Of course, on a condensed schedule like this, teams are probably less likely to give up the kind of asset we would be looking for, if for no other reason than the tightness of the playoff race...
all very nice thoughts but you act like other teams just have excess puck moving dmen lying around that they will trade for our scraps
there's a reason that Ryan Suter got 100 million dollars even thought he scores about 6 goals a season.... PMDs are one of the most coveted commodities in hockey and you either grow your own or you pay through the nose for them.
we will have to figure out some combo that works with the 7 defensemen we have....