In that series vs TB, when McDonagh played, he was better than every dman on the Bruins, including McAvoy. And Hedman was twice as good as McDonagh.
So IMO, whoever thinks our defense is good enough at this point is whistling past the graveyard. You can make a credible argument that even if the offense stays as it is today, that with Smith, it's still a solid forward group. Probably very good actually. But the defense is simply not good enough, and I would argue, they need a legit top 4 dman. Not a depth guy, and not even a "maybe top 4 guy". They need a guy for the left side who is objectively better than Gryz. That should be the standard.