No thanks to Suter. I can see the HFB battle lines are drawn.
A championship team needs D with skill AND enough speed. I watched MN playoff games. He was slow, admittedly he anticipates well, but at key times, he wasn’t the consistent spark.
This is an opportunity to NOT be the retirement club. But I’ve been wrong before.
THIS 100%.
I'd rather get Montour/ Nuti resigned or make a deal to get a vet with some wheels. I think one of the more refreshing things we have seen changed in our previous roster is d-men that can actually skate the puck out; instead of constantly dumping it out or making stupid decisions to get the puck moving out of our zone. We had the luxury to see Forsling, Weegar, Montour and on occasion Ekblad do this multiple times to great success. It gives us more flexibility to either skate the puck out, or stretch the forwards out with long passes. Speed is key here. We have Duclair, Verhaeghe, Lomberg and even Barkov that gave the other team conniptions trying to contain that speed. Having mobile and quick d just complimented it nicely. The whole reason Yandle was bought out was because he didn't have any of it. Shit it was the very reason why we started to sour with Ekblad in the first place. Doubly shit, thats why we want to get rid of Stralman. If they both had their speed and mobility we would have kept them. It's all about mobility.
I understand the need to get more experience / vet players but I do not think we should sacrifice speed or game plan here. Suter could provide that hockey IQ we need, sure. He could provide locker room and leadership support that Yandle was great at, sure. He could be a solid d man, sure.
But I would not like to see money tied up on an aging player when we could just make smarter moves. We should put more trust into our young players, Kierstad/Ludwiv, Kolychonok, Priskie and Keeper. We have 3 top dman - Ekblad, Weegar and Forsling. I say we make smart moves here.
