henchman21
Mr. Meeseeks
- Feb 24, 2012
- 63,289
- 47,804
If Makar and Manson are injured, how is that one guy moving over? That would be 3 D every night playing their off side unless Malinski and Nate Clurman (our only RD in the minors) are the call-ups.
I know you know a lot about hockey and watch it a lot more than I do, but I seriously doubt you know that much about all 19 players on the list. I wonder if we have different definitions of "can skate" and "can move the puck". I'm talking about 7th D levels of both of those things. Somewhere between JMFJ and Kurtis MacDermid. With the rest of our D core, all we need is someone who is not a liability out there, then pair them with Byram or G or even Hunt depending on how deep we're going with injuries.
As for team not letting those guys waste away, I think you are heavily overrating how smart NHL teams are. Also, some teams simply don't have the spots available because they already have established NHL players taking those spots. Let's imagine, say, Brady Keeper (I pretty much chose someone at random) fits my description. He doesn't produce any real offense but (let's imagine), he kills penalties, plays tough, can skate reasonably well, and makes a good first pass. Who is he beating in Montreal for a roster spot given that description? Or how about a guy like Alex Petrovic? He just put up a season with 27 points, so presumably he can move the puck a bit. If he kills penalties and can skate, he ticks all the boxes, but I can understand why he'd still be in the AHL if teams see him as an AHL veteran at age 31, given he hasn't even been called up for a game since 2019. To be clear, I've never seen these particular players in action, but replace those names with others on the list and we can probably come up with scenarios where they'd fit what I'd be looking for.
Lastly, yes the Avs move those picks all the time, and I'm sure most of them will be gone eventually, but why waste these picks when there are a selection of potentially useful players on very reasonable contracts available for free?
You're just jumping to worst case with the injuries. It could happen and guys would be playing their off sides, but teams don't plan on the worst case like that. If Makar is out for the season, the Avs are likely screwed anyway. 5-10 games of that in the regular season, doesn't really matter all that much. If that is the difference in the season, then the Avs simply aren't good enough.
This is being made out like a huge deal, but Vegas right now has 1 RD in their top 4 and only 2 in their top 6. Florida is starting the season without a single RD and only has 2 in their top 4. Dallas has 2 and they'll be middle and bottom pairing (if Lundqvist even makes the top 6). This is a pretty common thing around the league to only have 2 regulars.
You can doubt my knowledge all you want, I'm wrong a lot. I feel I have a good grasp on who these players are. Petrovic is a bad hockey player. He's a middle pairing AHL guy where his NHL skill is completely gone (and there wasn't much there to begin with). If he plays more than 5 games for you, you're in bad shape. Keeper? That guy is barely an AHL player today. Partially not his fault, but he's not a good skater upon his return from a broken tibia and fibia. It was a particularly bad spiral fracture. He didn't look like an AHL guy last year. IMO Montreal is taking a chance that it took a while for him to recover and he can be an every night sort of guy in Laval.
Waivers is not free... this is a misconception. There is a cost of transfer, there are salary implications, there are roster implications, and with the Avs' situation there are some significant cap complexities. If they want one of these guys, they'd actually be better off trading for them AFTER they clear waivers.