Too many of you are picking Greg as the minus, and it's sad honestly. Hes the easy answer that takes almost zero thought, and is an easy mainstream call. A lot of you guys just turned in a level of thought process that is about as competent in evaluating the Avs as THN is.
I have actually seen a few people put some thought into it wondering if Greg might be a positive for Bednar's style, and I respect that.
There is zero reason for me to believe that Greg needs Roy to succeed. Roy wasn't easy on Greg by any means and all he did was actually communicate what he wanted from him. Greg had to play on the fourth line and be scratched a lot under Roy. I'm really not sure why it would be any more or less difficult under the new coach. Especially a guy who is lauded for communicating with his players in a very direct and clear way. Use your damn brains, as we don't have a lot of high end passers in the forward ranks right now. Grigorenko will be extremely valuable with the new coaches system, especially with his defensive ability and attention to detail in his positioning. He won't have to hit people to for-check effectively either, so I can't imagine the physicality being a major issue. It's just not a requirement in playing a quick possession type of game.
MacKinnon's inability to adapt thus far when he gets frustrated is one thing I see as an issue. Hopefully that was just a lack of coaching, but it could be a real damn problem if MacK gets in a mode where he decides he likes one or two moves, and it ends up not being coaching that made him choose to draw from all of about two moves once entering the O-zone.
I really hope MacK squashes the idea that he is hockey dumb next season. I can't stand watching him do the same dumb **** over and over again expecting a different result.
I'd rather not pick MacK as my minus, but we're really going to find out what type of player MacK can be next season, and anything in the realm of disappointment will be the ultimate disappointment for this team.
The HF surprise is obviously Grigorenko, but in reality I think it's a guy like Soderberg who like Landeskog ends up being trusted and used in a lot of different situations because of the cerebral game he plays.
So the plus player I'm picking is Soderberg, as I think he ends up with a 60 point season due to the trust/ice time he earns from playing the right way.