News Article: NHL 31 in 31 2018-2019 Season Preview
- Thread starter Kamiccolo
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Subway Schenn
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ACC1224
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If Lindholm makes it to Top 6 while being a C without any injuries, either the Leafs going to win the Cup or two of Matthews, Kadri or JT are struggling massively.
stickty111
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Either he confused the player or the position.
SprDaVE
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Kamiccolo
Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.
Yeah I have to say it was refreshing to get something other than the lazy "that defense" narrative. Two guys with over 50 points, Dermott is a top 4 D on the bottom pair. Sure, the top RD is a hole, but every team has at least one of those. Zaitsev had a 30 point year and was a very solid 2nd pairing D playing tough minutes in his first year. If he gets back to that level, Zaitsev and Hainsey are fine as the bottom 4.
Maybe Dermott slots over and Borgman makes the bottom pair to add some size and balance out the defense. Assuming he plays his smart, calm hockey, he will compliment Rielly well.
Rielly - Dermott
Gardiner - Zaitsev
Borgman - Hainsey/Carrick
That is without seeing any of the new guys coming in. Two pairs with 50 point guys on it. Sure, they might struggle if they are being hemmed in their zone, but this is a group who can move the puck well to the forwards, and good luck hemming us in with the group up front we have.
Subway Schenn
Registered User
I like Dermott as much as the next guy but I do think we need to temper our expectations of him a bit. While he looked good last season after coming up (at least prior to playoffs), he also was heavily heavily sheltered by Babcock, so we don't really have any specific reason at this moment to think he's capable of holding down a top 4 spot for us even if we all hope he can.
Kamiccolo
Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.
The Atheltic did a breakdown of his season, and basically the numbers showed that he was one of the best third pairing guys in the entire league and majorily outperformed his deployments, while increasing his partners numbers (Polak, Carrick, etc) all saw their numbers go down when not paired with him. Very very similar to some of the D Vegas picked up who all turned into top 4 D. I would say the ONLY time he struggled was in the playoffs, and to be fair, half the roster did.
