Kamiccolo
Truly wonderful, the mind of a child is.
I really like Brown and Kapanen as NHL contributors, and I even like Ennis as a player. But none of them particularly strike fear in the hearts of opponents. Lindholm isn’t a particularly big fella. And if you go throughout the rest of the lineup, the team’s biggest players don’t really hit anyone (that’d be Auston Matthews, and maybe Patrick Marleau who will I guess bump some guys but isn’t a crusher). William Nylander and Mitch Marner aren’t getting their sweaters dirty very often. Guys like Nazem Kadri and Andreas Johnsson play gritty, hard working games, but aren’t intimidating anyone.
Basically the only guy who’s both bigger and tough to play (and will fight if necessary) is Zach Hyman.
So, that’s one forward total that I’d rate as a physical presence worth an ounce of fear, and even he prefers to stick check and get the puck back.
On the back end, you have a ton of puck movers — which is great — but go through the list and there’s not a player you’d exactly dread sharing the ice with. Morgan Rielly, Jake Gardiner, Ron Hainsey, Nikita Zaitsev, Travis Dermott, Connor Carrick … each player on their own can do very good things. But I just can’t see a player going into a game against the Leafs and thinking “F***, I do not want to spend a second in front of the net or in the corners.”
Of course, the very idea of this roster construction is that you aren’t in your own end, and the team has the puck the whole game, and nobody can catch you. I still feel like that’s probably the way to go. Just, when I look at the whole lineup at once, I flash back to my playing days, when I legitimately feared lineups full of physical players. Call me soft, but intimidation is still very real in a very physical game — and that’s important to remember, it’s always going to be a very physical game — and can make players pull up, hesitate and rush plays.
If you don't have a subscription I recommend it but I thought this article was worth discussing. The Author makes a very good point that while he agrees the roster is constructed for today's NHL, you need some toughness in the lineup, a point that has been brought up over the offseason.
He later goes on to say that Babcock will not stand for his team getting run over, and will push Dubas to add toughness if he feels they need it. This is a bit scary considering that means likely overpaying for toughness either through assets or through dollars.
Bourne: The NHL is shifting to more of a skill-first league,...